


maybe if i got my timing right

by missandrogyny



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (because I can't seem to get enough of weddings), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sort of like a My Best Friend's Wedding AU, Weddings, but not really fake relationship, with Fake Relationship elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 08:18:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16657495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missandrogyny/pseuds/missandrogyny
Summary: Louis is aware, of course, that this all makes him sound like the heroine from Twilight, but it’s just. It’s been three years, that’s all. Three years and not once does Louis think that he’s moved on, not once has he met someone who made him feel how Zayn did. Who made his heart race with excitement, with euphoria. Who made him feel high without drugs, like he was walking around on a cloud. Who made Louis feel everything—all the highs and the lows—with startling, vivid clarity.Which means that there must be some merit to his feelings, considering that it’s been three years and they’ve just consistently been…there. Unchanging. Unwavering.And whereas before he could ignore them, pretend they weren’t there, he can’t now because Zayn’s getting fucking married. He’s getting hitched. He’s entering into a lifelong commitment with another person, one that’s going to kill all of Louis’ hopes with Zayn and probably his last, only shot at love.So there really is no choice. Louis has to stop the wedding, confess to Zayn, and ultimately win Zayn back.(Or: AU where Zayn is getting married to someone thatisn'tLouis, and Louis enlists Harry's help to stop the wedding.)





	maybe if i got my timing right

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning: There is past Zouis in this fic, and it is mentioned extensively.**
> 
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> God, where do I even begin? This is my first, finished, good-for-posting fic in almost a year. So much of my life has changed since then.
> 
> This is a thank you to everyone who patiently waited for this girl to get her shit together and come out with a new fic. To everyone who supported me and my previous fics, to everyone who sent me encouraging messages and left lovely comments on my fics. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> Lastly, this is for **_you_**. I know you're never going to read it (and I hope to God you never do) but without you, I don't think this would've ever come to life. You deserve to be mentioned for that alone. Gracias, siempre.

The invitation arrives on Louis’ desk one Monday morning, innocuously placed on top of some tax forms and a bunch of articles Louis needs to look over. It’s quite large, made of thick, fancy, scented paper, with a little red bow wrapped around it, and the instant Louis spots it, he knows _exactly_ what it is.

So he does the logical thing to do. He drops a stack of papers on top of it and promptly ignores its existence.

. . .

Of course, like all logical plans, this one fails, simply because of Louis’ failure to consider external things. Or in this case, the presence of one, rather annoying best-mate-slash-office-mate.

“Did you see it?” Liam demands as he enters the room at lunch, no pretenses whatsoever. “I made sure to personally leave it on your table.”

“Why hello, Liam,” Louis replies, all faux-brightness and cheer. “It’s so nice to see you on this wonderful day. How are you? I, myself, am doing well—I had a really good sleep last night, and look,” he says, gesturing to the succulent on his table. “Katniss bloomed a flower.”

Liam stops. “I thought its name was ‘Protractus’.”

“Well, I decided that ‘it’ was a ‘she’, and that she was a strong independent woman who didn’t need no man.” Louis declares, touching the flower lightly. “Or a Peeta, for that matter.”

Liam looks confused. “Whatever,” he says. “But did you see it?”

“You mean did I see your handsome face today? Yes, I did, thank you for stopping by.”

“ _No_ ,” Liam says, crossing his arms. “Although…thanks. But _no_ , I was talking about the invitation.”

Louis plays dumb. “What invitation? Wait, are you finally going to stop wearing that weird chain? Are you inviting me to your place for a ‘Farewell, Liam Payne’s Chain’ party?”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Stop changing the subject.” He marches over to Louis’ desk, and starts ruffling through the papers on there. “I know I put it here somewhere.”

“Oi, Payno,” Louis snaps, trying to shove Liam away. “That is my _work_ you’re disturbing, and as you know I take my work _very_ seriously—”

“—Aha!” Liam says, pulling out the invitation from under Louis’ work forms. “Here it is! You put all your stupid shit on top of it!”

“I did not,” Louis snipes, gathering up all his paper. “I thought it was a tax form.”

“What an incredibly fancy tax form,” Liam deadpans. It’s actually quite a good deadpan; Louis would be proud if it was in any other situation. “Here.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? Open it, Louis.”

“I said, _no_.” The words come out much more emotionally than Louis intended them to, and he clamps his mouth shut, shakes his head. “I mean, I don’t need to, Liam, I already know what’s in it. Wedding invitations all say the same thing.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t just any wedding invitation,” Liam says. “This is _Zayn’s_.”

 “All the more reason _not_ to open it, don’t you think?”

 “Louis,” Liam says, his voice taking on a gentle tone. “You promised you wouldn’t be bitter about this. You promised you would go.”

And yeah, Louis did. But that was a promise he made at a shitty time in his life, under shitty circumstances. He was sad. And sad people make stupid promises, especially to people they’re in love with.

“Open it,” Liam urges, handing the envelope to Louis. Louis takes a moment to look at the calligraphy of _Mr. L. Tomlinson_ at the back, takes in the thick, fancy, iridescent envelope and the big red ribbon around it.

He hates it immediately.

Still, he opens it, simply because Liam is still there and watching him. The stupid ribbon falls off easily, and the inside is exactly as he expected.

_We are cordially inviting you to the wedding of Jelena Noura Hadid and Zayn Javaad Malik on Saturday, June fifteenth, four o’clock in the afternoon._

And on the right, a little post-it note stuck on the stupid, scented paper.

  _See you there, best man! – Zayn_

The thing is, distantly, he knew that. He knew that Zayn’s getting married, knew that he was going to be Zayn’s best man. But seeing it on paper just made it more real, more permanent. It’s too much, all at once. Louis wants to burn the invitation and crawl into a hole and never come out.

Still, he forces himself to stay calm, to tear his eyes away from the invitation, enough to smile at Liam. “There,” he says, and even he can hear the sudden shakiness in his voice. “I opened it. Happy, now?”

Liam, however, isn’t looking at him. “No,” he says his eyes stuck on the post-it note. “Fuck, I told him _not_ to push through with you being his best man. It’s not fair to you.”

“It’s fine, Liam,” Louis says, even though it is really, decidedly _not_. “I mean, I did promise.”

“But it’s not fair to you,” Liam repeats, growing heated. “Fuck, I’m going to call him right now and tell him—”

“No, Liam, it’s fine,” Louis insists. “Really. I promised I’d be his best man, and I am. Or at least, I will be.”

Liam pins him with a look. “Even with all the shit?”

Louis blows out a breath. _No_ , he wants to say, but it’s been three years, and he’s moved on by now. Or at least, he _should have_ moved on by now. “Well I promised I’d do it, and I will. How I feel doesn’t matter here.”

“But it _should_ matter,” Liam says. “Fuck, just last week, you got piss drunk and were _still_ crying about—”

“I know, Liam, I know,” Louis interrupts. “But it is what it is. I mean, you were the one going on and on about how I promised I’d go to the wedding.”

“As a _guest_ ,” Liam emphasizes. “I didn’t know he would really go and make you his best man.”

“Well, he did.” Louis shrugs. “It’s not his fault, though. I really did promise.”

“You know you don’t have to keep promises like that if it’s detrimental to your well-being, right?”

“I’m aware, Liam.” Louis deadpans. “But I’m also aware that I promised, and, well. I don’t want to break Zayn’s trust in me.”

It’s stupid—stupid and shitty and ridiculous of him, but. He thinks he’s just cursed to be this way, forever _weak_ for a boy who is now getting married to someone else, that he can’t even break a stupid promise he’s made while drunk and crying.

And Louis knows that Liam knows this all this; Liam was there for the entire thing, for the downfall and the crying and the desperation and the begging and the final, quiet acceptance. He’s been there since the beginning and he’s still here now, even though it’s been three years and any _normal_ , sane person would’ve moved on. But Liam, annoying as he is most of the time, is also incredibly perceptive, and right now he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t put into words what he’s thinking.

“You know if you let yourself, you’ll find someone else eventually,” he just says.

“I don’t need anyone,” Louis insists stubbornly. He strokes the Katniss’ flower with a finger. “I’m fine, Li. I really am.”

. . .

See, here’s a few things people should know about Louis and Zayn’s relationship:

One, Louis has known (well, known _of_ ) Zayn since the beginning of sixth form, when he was going about playing football and trying to get a good education. He’d always been intrigued by the dark-haired, middle-eastern boy who liked to lean against the old brick walls of their school and smoke cigarettes, while still being able to get good grades in all of his classes. The two of them had first exchanged words in their final year of sixth form, immediately hitting it off—so much so that when they found out they’d be going to the same uni, Zayn had automatically asked if Louis wanted to be his roommate.

Two, Louis and Zayn dated for two years. It had started off as an accident—a kiss when they had both been drunk and high, during a party in their last year of uni. They hadn’t spoke of it after, but it just kept happening again and again, that one day, in their shared flat, Zayn had said, “fuck it”, and turned to ask Louis if he wanted to go out on a date. Louis, not knowing what possessed him, had said “yes”, and, well. The rest was history.

And three, Louis is still pathetically, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Zayn. Even though it’s been three years since their break up. Even though they remained friends, best mates even. Even though one night, when he was smashed, Zayn pulled him aside, eyes sparkling, and said “Fuck, Lou, she’s _perfect_. I think I’m going to ask her to marry me. Will you be my best man?”

And Louis, who had been just as smashed as Zayn was, and was willing to do anything Zayn asked him, teared up and said, “Yeah, of course!”

Which is why he’s here now, stuck in this predicament.

Louis is aware, of course, that this all makes him sound like the heroine from _Twilight_ novel, but it’s just. It’s been three years, that’s all. Three years and not once does Louis think that he’s moved on, not once has he met someone who made him feel how Zayn did. Who made his heart race with excitement, with euphoria. Who made him feel high without drugs, like he was walking around on a cloud. Who made Louis feel _everything—_ all the highs and the lows—with startling, vivid clarity.

Which means that there must be _some_ merit to his feelings, considering that it’s been three years and they’ve just consistently been…there. Unchanging. Unwavering.

And whereas before he could ignore them, pretend they weren’t there, he can’t now because Zayn’s getting fucking _married_. He’s getting hitched. He’s entering into a _lifelong commitment_ with another person, one that’s going to kill all of Louis’ hopes with Zayn and probably his last, only shot at love.

So there really is no choice. Louis has to stop the wedding, confess to Zayn, and ultimately win Zayn back.

. . .

Of course, it occurs to Louis sometime within the week that in order to get his plan to work, he’s going to need some back-up. Someone who’ll support him throughout this crazy, hare-brained plan. Someone who’ll have his back. Someone who’ll be there for him at the end, _just in case_ things don’t work out as planned.

And it can’t be Liam, because Liam being the stickler that he is, will probably _not_ allow Louis to try and stop the wedding. He’ll just end up telling Louis that he’s _sorry_ and that he should _move on_ and other weird shit like _if you love him, let him go_ , which he probably got from those hipster Tumblr photos. And it can’t be Niall either, because no matter how easygoing he is, the whole debacle of Louis and Zayn is a sensitive issue for him, and he’ll probably go running to Liam about it the instant Louis tells him about his plan. No, for this, Liam and Niall are definitely _out_.

The problem, though, is that aside from them, Louis hasn’t really got anyone else. Sure, he’s got work friends, but Liam will immediately be suspicious if Louis takes one of them to the wedding, as he’s been obsessively trying to set him up with the people in the company for the past six months. He could take his sister, but Lottie would probably just judge him for his pathetic-ness, and he doesn’t want her thinking that he’s pathetic. He _could_ ask a random stranger on the street, but he might be slapped or punched for that.

Unless.

He’s reaching for his phone before he can talk himself out of it, opening the contacts app and scrolling all the way down. It takes a second for him to spot the name he’s looking for, and although they’ve kept in touch these past few years—texting almost every day and engaging in random conversation—it’s really _kind of a crazy idea_. Louis has no idea if he’s busy at work, or if they’re at that level of friendship, or if he’s even willing to _fly_ all the way to London.

But he’s all Louis’ got left, and, well. It can’t hurt to try, can it?

The phone rings once, twice, thrice, before someone picks it up. “Hello?” A deep, raspy, familiar voice says, on the other end of the line, and Louis steels himself, takes a deep breath.

“Harry?” He says. “Hi, um. I was wondering if you’d do me a favour.”

. . .

And, just like that, Louis’ got a date to his ex-boyfriend’s wedding.

. . .

“So, I’m bringing a plus one,” he tells Niall one day, when they’re sat in his living room, watching footie. “And no,” he starts when Niall opens his mouth to speak, “it’s not anyone you know.”

“I’m bringing a plus one,” he tells Liam nonchalantly, during one of their daily office lunches, and tries not to react when Liam’s face lights up. “And it’s _not_ Grimshaw from News, really, Payno, I honestly don’t understand why you’d think we’d even get along.”

“Um, so I’m thinking of bringing a plus one,” he tells Zayn on the phone, a few days later. “Would that be okay?”

Zayn laughs warmly, and the sound makes Louis’ heart twist a little in his chest. “Of course, Lou. I don’t mind.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

“I’m really happy for you, you know,” Zayn continues, and the warmth in his voice is the same one he always gets only when he talks to Louis, even after all these years. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“I mean, don’t get your hopes up,” Louis replies. “I’m still not sure if he’s going to show.”

But, he does. Walking out of the arrivals hall in the airport two weeks before the wedding, almost an hour after his plane landed. Louis knows this, because Harry had sent him the flight details, and Louis monitored the flight closely like a stupid lunatic. He slept a total of four hours last night, mostly because he spent the rest of the time watching a tiny aeroplane fly across the screen.

He had almost sort of hoped that Harry wouldn’t show. But, he’s here. And he’s…well.

Louis knows the instant Harry spots him, because his face lights up, his dimples popping out almost immediately. He doesn’t run over to Louis, of course, because that only works in romantic movies and would be absurd in a crowded airport like this, but there’s a definite spring in his step as he manoeuvres through the crowd.

“Lou!” He exclaims, when he’s finally standing in front of Louis. He opens his arms, presumably to hug Louis, but Louis raises a hand to stop him.

“Wait, wait,” he says, reaching up to touch Harry’s _short_ hair. “What in the _world_ happened here, Curly?”

Harry grins. “Well, it got long enough,” he says, crouching down a little so Louis can properly run his hands through it. “So I donated it.”

Louis blinks, still playing with Harry’s soft curls. “That’s amazing!”

“It was nothing,” Harry says, batting Louis’ hands away from his head. “And stop playing with them so I can give you a proper hug, c’mere.”

He wraps Louis in a bear hug, squeezing him so tight that Louis feels himself being lifted off the ground. It makes Louis laugh, but he hugs back as tight as he can anyway.

“I missed you,” he mumbles into Harry’s shoulder.

Harry must hear it because his arms tighten just a little bit more. “I missed you too.”

. . .

Louis’ can’t stop staring.

The thing is, Harry has always been hot—Louis has known this since the first time they met back in L.A., almost three years ago. If he’s being a hundred percent honest, Louis had always been a bit attracted to him, even back when he had long hair and wore brightly patterned dad shirts.

But now, God—Louis doesn’t think his memory of Harry does him any justice at _all_.

Aside from shearing his hair off, he seems to have bulked up a little, enough that he looks like he should’ve been a part of _Baywatch_. His skin is tan, golden from the L.A. sun, and his green eyes are bright, sparkling. He’s still wearing the brightly patterned shirts, but Louis can tell this time that they’re _expensive_ , almost as if tailor-made for his body. _And_ he’s got even _more_ tattoos than Louis remembers.

But his smile is the same; he grins with a hint of danger, of mischief, like he’s got no qualms ravishing Louis right here and now, like a hero from an old romance novel.

Honestly, Louis doesn’t know how he forgot just how much Harry made his knees weak. He’s pretty sure he’s committing a traffic safety violation. He’s going to get pulled over, he knows it.

The song that’s been playing on his car radio ends, and the next one begins. Louis turns it up, enough to catch the sound of a piano and a male voice singing _I fell in love with a beautiful girl and she still takes my breath away_. He quite likes the song; it’s been his favourite for about a week now, ever since Lottie had randomly sent him the YouTube link.

He’s just about to hum along when the radio abruptly shuts off.

“What the hell,” Louis says, shooting Harry a glance. He has to be careful not to look too long, because he knows if he did, he’d get distracted by Harry once more. “What did you do that for?”

Harry, at least, has the audacity to look sheepish. “Sorry,” he says, shooting Louis an embarrassed smile. “I just wanted a bit of quiet.” Louis watches as he chews on his bottom lip before turning to look out the window, probably taking in the gloomy, rainy London weather.

There’s one, two, three seconds of silence. And then Harry speaks again. “So, tell me about the wedding thing.”

Louis forces himself to look forward, to pay attention to the cars in front of him. “Um, it’s a wedding.”

Harry snorts. “ _Of course_ I know that. But you just said it was a wedding and you needed a date, and not much else.”

Louis shrugs. “To be honest, I’m surprised you agreed so easily,” he says. “If an old friend called me up, asked me if I wanted to be their date to a wedding, and did’t provide much details, I would think it’s a ploy to kill me and take all my money.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Harry give him a sharp glance. “Is this a ploy to kill me and take all my money?”

“ _No_ , but I’m just saying. You’re too trusting.”

“I don’t think I’m being too trusting if all I’m doing is trusting you,” Harry says. “And besides, it’s not all about you. I was due for some vacation days anyway, and I was actually thinking about flying home when you called. So, I just planned it together.”

“Awesome.” Louis flicks on his turn signal. “How’s the job going by the way? Still working at Starbucks?”

“It’s _not_ Starbucks, it’s an _organic, fair-trade, nitrogen-infused coffee shop_ ,” Harry emphasizes, the exact same way he did it three years ago. “And yes, and you’re sitting in the car with the manager.”

Louis widens his eyes. “Oh, help me Lord, I’ve never been around people with that kind of power.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You’re such an arse,” he says, but he’s smiling when he says it. “But really, you can’t distract me—”

“I just did,” Louis butts in.

“—so you should just tell me about the wedding,” Harry continues, ignoring Louis. “Who’s getting married? Why do you so _desperately_ need a plus one?”

The way he says _desperately_ makes Louis stop, makes all his adrenaline and excitement at Harry being here die down suddenly. He bites his lip, suddenly nervous.

“Lou?” Harry asks, probably sensing Louis’ discomfort, and _fuck_ , Louis forgot just how well Harry can read him, just how fluent he is in Louis’ little quirks and nuances. Even though it’s been three years since they last saw each other, he’s got no doubt that Harry can still read him like an open book. “Is everything okay?”

Louis forces himself to stay calm and focus on the plate of the car in front of him. Okay. He can do this. “Um, my mate Zayn is getting married.”

Harry nods. “Go on.”

“I’ve known him since the last year of sixth form? He’d been my best mate since then, until,” Louis takes a deep breath, “we dated.”

Louis chances a peek at Harry, finds his expression unreadable. “Okay,” Harry says.

“And uh, we dated for two years,” Louis continues. “It was…it was nice. I loved him, a lot.”

“Loved?” Harry hedges.

Louis sighs. “Love,” he clarifies, because he can’t lie to Harry. Harry would know. “I love him and now he’s getting married.” He pauses. “And I’m his best man.”

It’s silent after Louis finishes, enough that he can hear the patter of the rain on the roof of his car. Beside him, Harry is obviously taking it all in, clearly trying to make sense of the information Louis is giving him.

“I see,” Harry says finally. “And you want to, what, use me to make him jealous?”

His tone is a bit defensive, a little bit hurt. Louis understands why—with what he’s thinking, he probably thinks that Louis asked him to come all the way here just so Louis could _use_ him.

But that’s not it at all. Or at least, that’s not the whole thing

Louis shakes his head. “I want him to call off the wedding,” he answers truthfully. “It’s stupid, but I feel like he’s _it_ for me, you know? Like my last shot at love. Like Julia Roberts in _My Best Friend’s Wedding_.”

“Julia Roberts didn’t get Dermot Mulroney in that film,” Harry reminds him.

“Okay, Julia Roberts in _My Best Friend’s Wedding_ , except I actually get the guy.”

Harry shakes his head. “As much as I adore rom-coms…you _know_ those kinds of hare-brained plans only work in films, right?”

“Well, I’m hoping it’ll work for me,” Louis declares, turning into a street. “I just. Zayn loves me, I know it. I don’t know why he’s going to marry fucking Gigi Hadid.”

Harry’s eyes widen. “ _He’s_ the one marrying Gigi Hadid?”

“Really? That’s what you take from all this?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry says, running a hand through his air. “It’s just been everywhere in L.A., you know? Gigi Hadid marrying some unknown British boy.”

“Yeah. Zayn.” Louis turns into the garage, manoeuvring the car into his designated parking space.

 Harry hums. “I see,” he says. “So, I get that you want to stop the wedding, but, I don’t understand why you need me for it.”

“I just don’t want to seem desperate and depressed.”

“Lou, you’re trying to stop an A-list wedding. You _are_ desperate and depressed.”

Louis glares at him. “Fuck you.”

Harry shrugs. “I’m just telling it how I see it.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “Anyway. You’re here because I just didn’t want Liam and Niall—those are my friends, by the way—to worry about me. They were around for the worst of it, and just. I want them to think I’m okay. I also don’t want Zayn to worry about me either.”

“But you want him to stop the wedding.”

“Exactly.”

Harry exhales. “This is complicated. So just let me get this straight, you want to stop the wedding, but you also don’t want to seem desperate to your friends, so you want me to pretend to be in a relationship with you so it looks like you’ll be okay?”

“Not pretend,” Louis says. “It’s not only that either. I don’t want to only _look_ okay, I want you to ensure that I’ll be okay. Help out with my plan, yeah, but also get me out of my head when everything gets too much. Or distract me when I’m a little sad. Just...I just want you to act how you normally did around me before and distract me. But we won’t pretend to be something that we’re not. We’ll just let people…assume.”

Harry gives him a look. “So…you want me to be in a ‘let-people-assume’ relationship with you?”

“Well…yeah.” Louis sighs, turning to look at Harry. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask of you, and if you don’t want to, just say so and we can attend the wedding as friends. Hell, if you want, you can even _not_ attend the wedding and just spend these two weeks with your family in Cheshire. But I just thought I’d ask. Please?”

There’s a moment of silence. “Louis,” Harry starts slowly, “sometimes, you come up with the dumbest plans ever.”

Louis squeezes his eyes shut. “I know.”

“But…okay, I’ll help you out.”

Louis’ eyes spring open. “Seriously? You will?”

“I mean I already agreed to go to the wedding with you,” Harry says, shrugging. “My purple suit is going to be _so_ disappointed if I don’t wear her.”

Louis laughs, shuts off the car engine. “Careful there, you might outshine the bride.”

“Well, if your plan works there _won’t_ be bride to outshine,” Harry teases. The corner of his mouth quirks up, just a little bit. “And who knows, I might be able to catch the attention of someone cute.”

Louis ignores the strange feeling that blooms in his stomach. “Yeah, maybe.”

. . .

Harry sings in the shower. Loudly.

Louis doesn’t know why he didn’t remember that particular fact, considering that they’d spent almost every waking hour together before. There’d be days where he’d wake up from a late night to the sound of the shower and Harry’s voice wafting through the walls, singing renditions of whatever Top 40 hit that was stuck in his head.

It’s not bad, mind you. In fact, Harry sings extremely well, his voice deep and raspy, like it’s been dipped in honey and wrapped in smoke. It’s really pleasant to listen to, and Louis would sit and listen, actually, if it didn’t remind him of what life was like three years ago in L.A., and the confused, jumbled-up ball of feelings he’d had back then.

But it does, and it’s a bit too much, so Louis goes to the balcony for a smoke.

Louis doesn’t smoke much nowadays; he’d smoked much more back when he and Zayn had been joined at the hip and Zayn had the habit of offering cigarettes to everyone in the vicinity. But the sensation of smoke filling his lungs always manages to calm him, which is why he can’t quit completely—he has a habit of reaching for a cigarette when he feels a little overwhelmed.

He’s halfway through his second cigarette when Harry emerges on the balcony, his hair damp and curling. He leans against the railing beside Louis, eyeing the cigarette distrustfully. “You do know those can kill you, right?”

“Yep,” Louis says, taking a drag of his cigarette.

Harry rolls his eyes, snatching the cigarette from Louis. Instead of stamping it out like Louis expects him to, he takes a drag of it, exhaling the smoke up into the air.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Louis says.

Harry takes another drag of it, before dropping it onto the ground. “You learn some things in the trade,” he says cryptically.

“What, in the _Starbucks trade_? I thought you were all kale and quinoa bowls and shit over there.”

Harry gives him a look. “It’s not the Starbucks trade and you know it.”

Louis shrugs, trying to tamp down a smile. “All fancy coffee is Starbucks to me,” he says. “Seriously, I have to wonder, how is it that you’ve managed to live in L.A. all these years and just work in a coffee shop? I imagine the rent down there would be crazy.”

Harry looks away, towards the skyline in front of Louis’ balcony. “I dunno,” he shrugs. “I mean, I get by.”

“Yeah, but how? Do you skim a little off the top of the cash register? Do you sing in bars—nah, never mind, I heard you sing in the shower. That option’s out.”

Harry shakes his head, but Louis can see that he’s trying to fight down a smile. “That’s enough out of you, little one.”

“Are you a sugar baby? Do you have a sugar daddy?” Louis gasps. “Ooh, do you moonlight as a male prostitute?”

Harry shakes his head. “God, I forgot how much of a pain you are,” he says, but he’s smiling fondly as he says it.

“Don’t pretend you don’t love me,” Louis says, rolling his eyes.

At that, Harry’s smile morphs into something more unreadable. “I’m not,” he says. “Now if you shut up, I’ll cook dinner later. I still remember how much you enjoyed my beef wellington.”

“Will it be _organic, fair-trade, nitrogen-infused_ beef wellington?” Louis asks, because he can’t help himself.

Harry rolls his eyes, runs, and locks him out in the balcony.

It takes Louis a lot of pleading and (maybe a little bit of groveling) before Harry lets him back in again.

. . .

It takes Louis no time at all to readjust to Harry’s sudden presence in his home.

To be honest, it’s almost like they never separated, almost like the three years since they last saw each other never existed. Almost like Harry’s been here all this time, because it’s genuinely a bit scary at how easily comfortable they are with each other.

Harry still berates Louis for the chores he refuses to do (he _really_ doesn’t need to make his bed if it’s just going to get rumpled again later), still frowns deeply when he sees what Louis has got in his cupboards. Still insists on cooking dinner, when, after that first beef wellington, Louis had told him that it _really_ wasn’t necessary, and he’s learned to cook a bit in the three years they’ve been apart. He still forces Louis to eat more vegetables and he still eats with his tongue out like a baby lizard and he _still_ pretends that he doesn’t want any chocolate when Louis offers him some, but takes a piece from the share Louis cut for himself.

(Louis’ pretty proud that he remembered what a notorious food stealer Harry was, and made sure to get him a piece despite his insistence otherwise.)

And after dinner, Harry still does the washing up immediately, despite Louis telling him that they can do it later. He still makes that face when Louis offers him a beer, and still chooses rom-coms to watch on Netflix.

He also still is a huge cuddler. Not that Louis minds though; in fact, it’s pretty nice to be cuddling someone. Louis hasn’t had that in a while.

So, yeah. It’s perfect. This is the kind of behaviour Louis is counting on during the next two weeks.

. . .

Their first “test” comes a few days later, after dinner. Someone rings the doorbell when they’re watching a dumb film on the telly, and Harry, because he actively chooses to be responsible, gets up to open the door, despite Louis’ whining. Louis lies down and curls into the warm space Harry left behind, and is about to focus back on the film when he hears a strong, distinctly Irish voice.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Um,” he hears Harry stutter, “Lou? Are these your friends?”

“Most probably,” Louis calls back, refusing to move from the couch. “Send them away, please.”

“I’m not your slave,” Harry calls back, and lets them in.

It takes only a second for Liam and Niall to make it to Louis’ living room and stand in front of the telly, each with an eyebrow raised at him. Behind them, Harry trails along calmly, hands in the pocket of his sweats.

“What are you guys doing here?” Louis asks Liam and Niall, ignoring their expectant looks. “Why have you both decided to barge into my flat without notice?”

Liam rolls his eyes. “It’s Wednesday,” he says.

Louis blinks. “So?”

“Wednesday Film Night?” Liam says, the _duh_ in his tone. “We have it every week since you joined the paper?”

 _Oh_. Somehow, Louis totally forgot about Wednesday Film Night. He fully blames Harry for this.

“And I don’t work at the paper, but I always tag along,” Niall says cheerfully. His eyes slide towards Harry. “But I can see why you’d forget.”

“It’s not _like_ that,” Louis complains, rolling his eyes. “Liam, Niall, that’s Harry. He’s my plus one to Zayn’s wedding, but he doubles as my slave.”

“Do not,” Harry argues, but it’s a rendered moot when he’s lifting Louis’ head up from the couch and resting it on his lap. He’s definitely, a hundred percent Louis’ slave.

“Wait,” Niall says, as Liam looks at them with distrustful eyes. “You really _were_ going to bring a plus one? Like a real plus one?”

“Yes, Niall,” Louis answers, a bit irritably, “Harry’s here and he’s a real person.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that,” Harry says, because he just always has to say something. “After all, how much of the world is real? How do we know if this is reality?”

“I thought you were lying!” Niall exclaims, ignoring Harry’s philosophizing. “I mean, when you said it wasn’t anyone I knew, I thought you were lying because face it, Tommo, you don’t know anyone I don’t know.”

“That’s a bit disrespectful there, Niall,” Louis answers. “For your information, I’ve got a thriving social life full of people you’re not even familiar with.”

Niall shrugs. “I’m just saying, if you’ve met them, chances are I know them. It’s happened loads of times before.”

It actually has. Louis’ pretty sure that it makes his social life look pathetic, but it’s not that really. It’s just that Niall’s got a superpower.

He turns his attention to Liam, who’s still staring at them a bit angrily. “And you, why haven’t you said anything?”

“I thought your plus one would be Nick,” is Liam’s reply.

Louis blinks at him. “I told you specifically that it was _not_ Grimshaw, and yet you still thought it would be?”

Liam throws his hands up. “I just really think you and Nick would get along, if you gave him the chance! He’s funny, and I know he thinks you’re fit—”

“Stop it, stop it right now.” Louis shudders theatrically. “The only time I’m going near him is to tell him to lessen the news and give me more space for my sports columns. Otherwise, he can fuck right off.”

Seriously. _Grimshaw_ from News? That guy’s a pompous arse.

Liam rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says. “So, tell me about Harry. Where’ve you been hiding him?”

“In the closet,” Harry answers cheerfully. When everyone turns to him, he waves. “I’m right here, you know. You can ask me things.”

“Okay,” Louis says. “Can you be a darling and get me some more beer, please?”

“Not those kinds of things,” Harry says exasperatedly, but he’s standing up from the couch anyway. Truly, Louis’ got him trained.

When Harry’s gone, Louis looks up at Liam and Niall. “Okay, one, I met him in L.A., and two, can you both sit down please? It’s hurting my neck to look up at you both.”

Thankfully, they both comply with no quips about Louis’ height, scrambling to sit on the floor. It’s probably because they’re so curious. Louis should really meet more hot people and keep them a secret from his mates.

“L.A.?” Niall asks. “Like, the time you went to visit Lottie there after your break up with Zayn?”

“Yep,” Louis says. “Picked him up there, haven’t got rid of him ever since.”

Louis doesn’t think he _can_ , anyway. Harry seems strangely taken by him, diligently keeping in touch during the last three years, despite everything. Not that Louis’ complaining. Harry’s sweet and nice and attractive and he flies out to London and gets in on Louis’ hare-brained schemes. Louis definitely lucked out on having a friend like him.

“Huh,” Liam says, frowning, obviously deep in thought. Louis resists the urge to tell him that he doesn’t look good while thinking. “But you didn’t tell us that you met someone in L.A.”

“Well, maybe I just wanted to keep him to myself, Liam,” Louis replies a bit snippily. It’s a lie, but Louis’d rather that than the truth—that he’d done his best to forget about everything that happened there, burying the memories deep down. It had been a life-changing trip, but Louis didn’t want his life changed. He wanted it to be exactly the way it was before.

But before Niall and Liam can ask anything else, Harry comes back, three beers and a wine cooler in his giant hands. “I got you guys a beer too,” he tells Liam and Niall, handing them their bottles. “And here’s yours, Lou.”

Louis beams up at him, takes the beer. “Did you get me the M&Ms in the fridge?”

Harry sighs, pulls the tiny packet out of his pocket. “Already knew you were going to ask.”

“You’re the best,” Louis tells him sincerely, and Harry smiles fondly at him, sits back down on his spot beside Louis. He places an arm behind Louis, and Louis cuddles into his chest, enjoying the warmth of Harry’s skin through his shirt and the soft _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart.

He also does his best to ignore Liam and Niall’s staring.

. . .

“So, Harry, huh?” Liam asks the next day, just like Louis knew he would.

“A lovely English name, as well as the name of my friend,” Louis replies.

Liam raises an eyebrow. “ _Just_ your friend?”

“Well, also my slave.”

“Louis, you know where I’m getting at.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yes, Liam,” he says exasperatedly. “ _Just_ my friend.”

“Are you sure?” Liam asks skeptically. “Because yesterday didn’t look like _just_ friendship to me.”

“I think I would know better than anyone else if it was friendship or something more.”

“Well yes,” Liam says, “but sometimes you’re just so weird when it comes to love.”

Louis bristles. “What does that mean?”

Liam suddenly looks nervous. “Never mind,” he says. “Let’s just eat lunch.”

“Liam,” Louis says, making his voice as deadly as possible. “Tell me.”

Liam chews on his bottom lip, evidently deciding, before he sighs. “Fine. It’s just that sometimes it’s like you’ve got a skewed-up perspective when it comes to love, you know? Deliberately missing opportunities to meet people, disregarding chemistry, you know. That sort of thing.”

“Is this about Grimshaw again? Because Liam, I really appreciate you trying to set me up, but—"

“It’s not,” Liam interrupts, his voice unreadable. “It’s about Zayn.”

And just like that, Louis deflates, all the fight in him disappearing in a snap. He looks at Liam, ad he doesn’t know what Liam sees in his expression, but his face softens considerably.

“So I’m just saying,” Liam says. “Maybe you’ve got something really wonderful with Harry, but you’re refusing to let yourself see it, because you’re too blinded by Zayn.”

 _Something really wonderful with Harry_. Liam’s words make a lump form in Louis’ throat, sensations and memories quickly flashing through his mind. The way Harry dances, when he’s ridiculously drunk and happy. The feeling of his calloused hands on the skin of Louis’ waist. The way he kisses—careful, so careful, like he’s trying his hardest not to hurt Louis. The way he looks asleep, his chest rising and falling peacefully. At the time, he felt like Louis’ whole world.

 _But he wasn’t_ , he tells himself. His time with Harry was of another life, and his memories are simply remnants of that life. In this life, in the _real_ world, Harry is just Louis’ long-distance friend, someone he met while he was in vacation and managed to keep in touch with. In this life, Louis lives in London and works as a sports editor for a well-known paper and his heart belongs only, solely to Zayn.

“Maybe,” Louis says lightly, ignoring the way his chest is beginning to constrict painfully. “But, it doesn’t matter. He’s getting married, and I’m his best man. And Harry’s my _friend_ , who’s come here to support me in a very difficult time in my life.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe anything that’s just come out of your mouth.”

“It’s the truth,” Louis says as honestly as he can. “Now can we enjoy our lunch now please? I’m famished.”

Liam looks at him distrustfully, but he lets it slide, and the two of them finish their lunch in peace.

. . .

Zayn’s the last person who gets to meet Harry, of course.

They get invited to a dinner party, because Zayn’s marrying into the type of family that hosts dinner parties on a regular basis. It’s probably going to be pompous and posh and Louis’ pretty sure he’s going to hate it.

Harry, on the other hand, is absolutely thrilled when Louis tells him that they’re going to go.

“I love dinner parties,” he tells Louis when they’re at the cab to the venue. It’s at some posh restaurant at the heart of London, because Gigi is a _Hadid_ and Louis expects nothing less from her.

Ugh. Louis’ planning on getting really drunk tonight.

“I love _real_ parties,” Louis quips back. He leans back on his seat. “God, I hope they have alcohol.”

“You’re deluding yourself if you think dinner parties aren’t real parties,” Harry says, turning to face him. Louis has to admit he looks incredible—his curls are brushed back in a way that makes them seem soft and effortless, but still neat. His shirt is nicer than usual, made of what seems to be a dark silk, and fits nicely around his torso. It’s designer, too; Louis peeked at the tag when Harry was in the shower, almost having an aneurysm when he read the words _Saint Laurent_ on the label.

Seriously. Where the fuck does he get his money. Louis’ now a bit scared that he’s been in contact with a drug dealer all this time.

“If they don’t have alcohol, they’re not real parties to me,” Louis says, shrugging. “Why are you acting like you haven’t been outside these past few days, anyway? What do you do while I’m at work?”

“Wait for you to get back,” Harry replies sadly.

Louis blinks. “Um.”

That makes Harry laugh, his dimples digging craters in his cheeks. “No, `m just kidding,” he says. “I _do_ go out when you’re at work. Mostly, I walk around London and meet some old friends. Sometimes attend a few work meetings too.”

That gets Louis’ attention. “Work meetings?” He asks. “I thought you were on vacation.”

“I _am_ ,” Harry says, “but I still have to deal with some things while I’m here. And if that includes meeting a few industry people, then I’ll do it.”

“Industry people for your _coffee shop_?”

“Yep.”

Louis looks at him skeptically, raising an eyebrow at him. “You’re never going to tell me what you actually do for a living, are you?”

There’s a smug glint in Harry’s eye. “I told you, I’m the manager at an organic fair-trade nitrogen-infused coffee shop.”

“Nope,” Louis says, crossing his arms. “But fine, don’t tell me. It’s probably something illegal anyway, and when the police come for you, it’s better that I don’t know anything.”

“It’s _not_ illegal, I’m—”

“Lalala,” Louis covers his ears with his hands. “Can’t hear you.”

Harry reaches over, wraps his gigantic hands around Louis’ wrists and pulls them down from his face. “You’re an arsehole,” he says seriously. “I have no idea why I even like you.”

Louis does his best to ignore the warmth that spreads in his chest at Harry’s words. He looks Harry straight in the eye, cups his hands around his face. Harry’s face visibly softens, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

He’s so beautiful. Louis takes a deep breath, leans forward, and says, “Okay, but blink once if you’re a drug dealer.”

And Harry exhales loudly, pulling back until his back hits the seat, Louis’ hands falling away from his face. “Louis,” he chides weakly, but he doesn’t follow it up with anything.

Louis ignores the disappointment settling in his chest, ignores the voice in his head screaming _you idiot!_ over and over. “What?” He says. “I was just making sure.”

Harry shakes his head, doesn’t say much for the rest of the trip there.

It doesn’t take long for them to arrive at the venue. The restaurant is similar to how Louis expected it to be—although the space is a lot tinier than Louis thought, the furnishings lavish and expensive, with high ceilings and crystal chandeliers.

And, of course, the whole restaurant has been blocked off for them.

“Ugh,” Louis says, when he enters. “Can you believe rich people?”

Harry gives him a sidelong glance. “I think it’s nice.”

“You would, as you have drug money _and_ are apparently the poster boy for _Saint Laurent_ ,” Louis shoots back easily. “I, however, do not even make enough money in _a year_ to rent out this whole restaurant.”

Harry nudges him. “Where’re we sitting?”

“If I said ‘the floor’ so we can protest against the privileged one percent, would you hate me?”

“Harry!” Someone calls, startling both Harry and Louis from their conversation. There’s a tall, dark-haired girl standing at a distance, waving at them enthusiastically, and it takes Louis a moment to place her.

Harry’s eyes widen. “Kendall, hi,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised, and then he’s leaving Louis’ side and walking over to _Kendall fucking Jenner_.

How the fuck does Harry even know Kendall Jenner anyway?

He watches as Harry hugs her, pressing a kiss to her cheek as a greeting. She laughs, all lovely and beautiful in the way only people who work in the spotlight can be, and Louis watches as she talks to him, watches as Harry leans a bit forward to hear her better, despite the fact that it’s not that noisy inside the restaurant.

It becomes clear to Louis that they know each other _well_ when Kendall laughs again at something Harry’s said, looking absolutely delighted to see him, and Louis realizes he’s digging his fingernails into his palms and doesn’t understand why as Kendall moves closer to Harry as their conversation continues.

Louis wonders what they’re talking about. Probably something like _what are you doing here?_ or _It’s so nice to see you_ , _you look so good_ or _wanna get out of here and fuck?_. Louis doesn’t know. Or care.

Why would he care, anyway? Louis doesn’t own Harry, Harry can do whatever the fuck he wants.

“Why do you look like you’re about to kill someone?” A voice asks, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder and he’s being whirled around roughly, coming face-to-face with Zayn. “Straighten this out,” he says, using a thumb to smooth out the lines on Louis’ forehead, “this is supposed to be a party.”

Louis hadn’t even realized he was scowling.  “Hey, Zayn,” he greets, forcing himself to relax. Zayn hugs him; Louis closes his eyes and inhales the familiar scent of cigarettes and sandalwood, the smell he’ll always, _always_ associate with Zayn. “Nice place you rented.”

Zayn pulls away. “Thanks,” he says warmly. “But to tell you the truth, this was all Gigi and her mum. I can’t say I really care much for all this.”

Louis can’t help it, he laughs. “Still a true Bradford bad boy, eh?”

“You can take the boy out of Bradford, but you can’t take Bradford out of the boy,” Zayn agrees, the corners of his lips turning up in a fond smile. “How’ve you been? I’ve been so busy with the wedding that we haven’t had the time to see each other, but you look…really good, Lou.”

That, and the way Zayn’s looking at him, his brown eyes fond, makes something warm erupt in Louis’ chest. “Um, thanks,” he says, self-consciously adjusting his shirt. It’s one he got from Lottie for his birthday last year, and he’s been told that it really brings out the blue in his eyes. “But, you know, same old. Still working at the paper.”

“Still fighting the other editors for more space for your columns?” Zayn asks.

Louis grins mischievously. “Always. Still reading it, I hope?”

“Always,” Zayn replies, matching his grin. “I’ve still got a subscription even though everyone’s been telling me print is dead. Don’t tell Liam, but the sports section is undoubtedly my favourite.”

“Have I ever told you how sweet you are?” Louis blurts, before he can help himself.

Zayn’s eyes soften, something more fond and intimate flashing through them. “Anything for you, Lou,” he says. “You know I’m always here to support you, yeah?” He doesn’t wait for answer, just shakes his head. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go greet the other guests. Liam and Niall are already seated, but I’m pretty sure they’ve saved a seat for you and your plus one. Who is…?”

 _Flirting with a supermodel_ , Louis is about to reply, but then suddenly there’s a hand on his hip and a person on his left. “Right here,” Harry says, seemingly materializing from thin air. He offers his right hand out for Zayn to shake. “`m Harry.”

Zayn smiles, takes his hand. “Zayn,” he says, and Louis feels Harry’s grip on him tighten just a little bit. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Harry says. “Louis’ told me so much about you.”

“All good things I hope,” Zayn replies warmly. “But I can’t say the same, Louis hasn’t told me anything about you.”

“Maybe he just wanted to keep me all to himself,” Harry says sunnily. He’s clearly turning up the charm; Louis’ literally never seen his dimples this deep. “But don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be time for us to talk later.”

“I’ll definitely make sure of it,” Zayn says, smiling at him. “I’ll see you guys later, alright?”

And then he’s gone, weaving through party guests until he reaches another couple, offering his hand out for them to shake.

It’s Harry who speaks first. “That was Zayn?” He asks, sounding incredulous. “Now I know why you’re so hung up on him. He’s _hot_.”

Louis punches him weakly. “Shut up,” he says, no malice in his voice. “Where were you, anyway? And how the fuck do you know _Kendall Jenner_?”

“Oh,” Harry says, sounding a bit bashful. “She’s my friend.”

“Yeah, but _how_?”

Harry shrugs. “I met her in L.A.”

“What, she walked into your coffee shop by accident like something straight out of _Notting Hill_?”

“No, nothing like that,” Harry says. “She went with a mutual friend of ours.”

“A mutual friend,” Louis repeats, incredulously. “You guys have mutual friends. Okay. Next you’re going to tell me you hang out with the rest of the clan too?”

“Uh, no, I don’t,” Harry says.

“Thank God for small mercies.”

 “…but like, Kim sent me a Christmas card last year.”

Louis blinks at Harry, shell-shocked. “I don’t know you,” he declares, then grabs Harry’s hand and marches off to find Liam and Niall.

. . .

Dinner ends up surprisingly nice; Louis can say what he wants about rich people and expensive restaurants, but they really do know how to make good food. Everything they get served is incredibly scrumptious, that by the end of the night, Louis feels so full that he feels that he’s about to explode.

Of course, that could also be due to the open bar at the party. Louis hasn’t stopped drinking since Niall had pointed him in its direction earlier and told him that the alcohol was free-flowing.

It’s not his fault, though. Somehow, Zayn ends up sitting right across him, and with Zayn comes his incredibly beautiful and incredibly blonde fiancé, Gigi. And apparently, with Gigi comes her incredibly beautiful and incredibly lovely best friend, Kendall. And really, it’s like staring into an incredibly blinding lighthouse; the three of them just sitting there and eating like they’re not single-handedly making everyone around them look like trash and oh, they’re laughing together and it’s even worse than them just sitting and eating their food because now Louis knows that both Gigi and Kendall have got a personality and interestingly enough, and Kendall is the type of person to keep ordering alcohol because apparently she wants to drink and can read Louis’ mind about wanting to get drunk and Zayn and Harry get along like a house on fire and halfway through the whole thing, Harry’s hand has somehow found its way onto Louis’ upper thigh and Louis can’t seem to bring himself to take it off and God, he needs another drink _yesterday_.

“So,” Zayn says to Harry, “tell me about yourself, since Louis didn’t tell me anything.”

“Um,” Harry says, biting on his bottom lip. He’s a bit tipsy due to the alcohol Kendall kept ordering for them, and his words are slurring in a way that makes him sound more northern than Louis is used to. “`m Harry, I grew up in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, and I moved to L.A. right after uni and I work in a coffee shop.”

“Ooh,” Kendall says, leaning forward. “He’s also—”

“Working at an organic, fair-trade, nitrogen-infused coffee shop, yes, I was just about to mention that,” Harry interrupts. “Thank you, Kendall.”

“I don’t know how you can say that so quickly while drunk,” Niall declares loudly, scrunching up his face in thought. “Organic…fair-nitrogen...”

“No,” Liam argues. “It’s organic, fair-infused—"

“Um, yeah,” Kendall cuts in excitedly. “Harry’s also—”

“The manager there, yes, right again, Kendall,” Harry interrupts. Louis doesn’t miss the look he shoots her. “You know me so well.”

Kendall rolls her eyes. “Yes, I do, Harry,” she says, leaning back on her seat. There’s an amused smile on her face though, which means that everything is probably forgiven and their plans to go off in a closet and snog later in the evening are still on.

Louis needs like, eight-hundred more drinks. Luckily, Kendall reads his mind and orders another round for them from a passing waiter, turning up the charm so they’d get it quicker. She would be his favourite Kardashian, if not for the Harry thing.

Except, what the fuck is Louis saying. Harry is a free, single man, allowed to do whatever—or _whom_ ever—he wants.

“Ooh, I’m always in L.A.,” Gigi says, like that’s not common knowledge to the rest of the world. “What’s it called? Maybe I’ll drop by sometime, visit you while you’re working.”

“It’s uh,” and here, Harry starts look a bit embarrassed, “ _Since You’ve Bean Gone_.”

Louis blinks at him. “ _Since You’ve Bean Gone_?” He’s pretty sure that wasn’t the name of the coffee shop when he was there three years ago.

Harry runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he says, a bit panicky. “I’m not the one who named it, I’m not the owner.”

Gigi, however, looks delighted. “I love that song!” She gushes excitedly. “I definitely have to visit.”

“Sure,” Harry says. “Just look for me when you come over, there’ll be a free coffee waiting for you.”

“Um, are you allowed to do that, Harry?” Kendall asks, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Seeing as you’re only the manager and not the owner?”

Harry waves a hand. “What he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” he says. “Anyway, enough about me, tell me about you, Zayn. You met Louis at sixth form, right?”

“Yep,” Zayn answers easily. “Met him at sixth form, went to uni together. Know all the shit about him. C’mon, ask me.”

“No, don’t—” Louis starts, but Harry’s ignoring him, leaning forward to hear Zayn better.

“What’s sixth form Louis like?” He asks gleefully.

Zayn looks at Louis and smiles fondly, as if reminiscing. “Oh, that’s easy,” he says. “He was on the footie team, and he liked to read. Was a really good writer too, if I remember correctly. He used to write songs and stuff, but gave it up when we went to uni.”

Louis is about to die. He does his best to glare at Zayn, but he’s pretty sure the effect is watered down by how much alcohol he has in his system.

“Oh,” Zayn continues, ignoring Louis. “He had the strangest fashion sense.”

Oh. Oh no. “Can we not talk about me like I’m not here, please?” Louis asks.

Harry pats his thigh. “Don’t worry, babe,” he says absently. “I could never forget your presence. Now tell me what his fashion was like?”

Zayn’s eyes shift from Harry to Louis, and Louis doesn’t know if Zayn’s face actually falls for a split-second or he’s just too drunk he’s imagining things.

“Ah, well,” Zayn says. “He used to wear like red trousers? And suspenders. Lots of suspenders.”

“Suspenders, hm,” Harry says so lasciviously that Louis has to punch him on the arm.

“And like, stripes,” Zayn continues. “At any given time, he looked like a sailor. His outfit was very nautical.”

“Interesting,” Harry says, stroking his chin. “Very interesting. Cute, but very interesting.”

“I was not cute—” Louis starts, but he’s cut off by Zayn’s laugh.

“He was,” Zayn says fondly. “Incredibly cute, I mean. But he was one of the best people I knew. Still is, actually.” He looks at Louis, and there’s something intense in his expression that it makes Louis’ breath catch in his throat. “I’d do anything for him.”

Harry’s grip on his leg tightens subtly, but Louis doesn’t notice because he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but sit back and look at Zayn. He’s probably got a stupid expression on his face but he doesn’t care, can’t muster up the energy to fix it.

He needs another drink. Or ten.

Luckily, Kendall seems to be telepathic. “Um, excuse me?” She says to the passing waiter. “Can we all have another round of drinks, please?”

The night rapidly devolves from there.

. . .

Somehow, despite their drunkenness, he and Harry manage to make it home in one piece. Louis sprawls on his living room floor, partly because the cool floor feels nice through his shirt, and partly because he can’t be bothered to get up and go to his bed.

“You and Zayn were…something else, weren’t you?” Harry asks sitting down on the floor beside him.

Louis swallows the sudden lump in his throat. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He definitely cares about you a lot,” is Harry’s reply, and there’s something in his tone, something that Louis can’t place. “Like, I noticed.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “That’s why I…” He gestures to himself, and then to Harry, hoping Harry understands.

Harry does. “Yeah, I get it,” he says, his tone sad. “I’d do it too, if I were you.”

“I mean, there’s a chance it might not work,” Louis says, rolling onto his side. “But I don’t know, I figured I have to try.”

“Yeah,” Harry says again, then he’s pushing himself up and leaving the room.

Louis sighs, closing his eyes, trying to listen for Harry’s footsteps. He wonders if Harry is angry. Or sad. He wonders if he’s inadvertently made Harry cry, by dragging him into this stupid, hare-brained plan of his. Louis is a lot of things—hopeful, reckless, stupid, drunk—but never in his life would he ever, ever want to make Harry cry.

He wonders if Harry’s going to leave. That thought makes him jolt up all of a sudden, his vision spinning from how much alcohol’s in his veins.

 _He’s going to leave_ , Louis thinks to himself, somewhat sadly, lying back down on the floor. Something heavy settles at the bottom of his stomach. _He’s going to leave because of me_.

Distantly, he knows that Harry has a right to leave—he was doing Louis a favour, after all, and after tonight maybe he doesn’t want to anymore. Maybe everything became too much for him. Maybe he doesn’t want to be entangled in this confusing mess of Louis’ anymore.

He has a right to leave, but at that moment, Louis wishes so desperately that he would stay.

The sound of footsteps catches Louis’ attention, and he rolls over to see Harry coming back into the living room, a guitar in hand.

“Where’d you get that?” Louis blurts out stupidly, his heart suddenly hammering a mantra of _he’s still here he’s still here he’s still here_ in his chest.

Harry shrugs. “Your room,” he says, sitting down on the floor beside Louis. Louis pushes himself into a sitting position, shifting so that he’s facing Harry. “I saw it there a few days back, when I was looking around. And then Zayn said you used to write songs but gave it up, and I thought, _there’s no way someone would give it up that easily_.”

“I haven’t touched that guitar in years,” Louis lies weakly, but Harry holds a hand up, strums the strings.

“Perfectly tuned,” he says, sounding pleased. “What, you tuned it this morning or something?”

Louis sighs, shakes his head. “Yesterday,” he admits.

“Perfect.” Then Harry holds the guitar by its neck, tries to pass it to Louis. “Play me something.”

Louis sputters. “Uh, no.”

“What, why not?”

“I don’t know anything.” It’s not technically a lie; Louis has spent hours teaching himself songs on the guitar. The only problem is he can’t remember them when he’s drunk and put on the spot.

Harry cocks his head, looks at him questioningly. “Write me a song, then.”

“What?”

“Zayn said you used to write songs, write me a song that sixth form Louis would write.”

“Uh,” Louis says. “But sixth form Louis was shit at writing songs, he’d say the most stupid shit and just _C-G-A-minor-F_ everything.”

“Hm.” Harry pulls the guitar closer to him. “You know, that’s not actually a bad chord progression.”

“It’s not,” Louis replies, “if you want everything you write to sound like a Taylor Swift song.”

“Fair point.” Harry strums those four chords, and Louis tries not to stare at the movement of his fingers on the guitar. Harry’s got gorgeous hands—they’re huge, his fingers long and deft. Louis thinks that he wouldn’t mind holding Harry’s hand, just for a little while.

“You should play me something.” The words tumble out of Louis, unprompted. “Or write me a song.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth ticks up. “Write a song about you,” he says. “I can do that. I mean, I’ve done it before.”

Louis rolls his eyes, trying not to smile. “ _Right_. And what happened to those songs you wrote about me?”

“I sold them and earned a lot of money,” Harry says cheekily, before strumming the C-chord on the guitar. “Okay, I’ll _C-G-A-minor-F_ it, because you love that chord progression—”

“Obviously,” Louis butts in, now unable to stop himself from smiling. His heart is fluttering in his chest, a warmth spreading throughout his veins, to the tips of his fingers.

“And I’ll start…” Harry cocks his head, thinks for a moment. “ _Oh, Louis_.”

“Always a good first line.”

“Shut up,” Harry says, then he’s strumming in earnest. “ _Oh, Louis_ ,” he sings. _“You are so…gooey_.”

Louis snorts. “What does that even mean?” He asks.

Harry ignores him, just continues strumming. “ _You make me smile, like nothing has for a while_ ,” he sings, “ _and you remind me of…chop suey_.”

Louis can’t help it, he laughs. “Okay, that’s horrible,” he reaches for the guitar. “Give me that, please.”

Harry shakes his head, his eyes dancing as he strums. _“Oh, Louis_ ,” he sings loudly. “ _You don’t like…boobies_.”

“Really, Harry—"

“ _You used to play footie, and you got a big booty_ …”

“See, now your lyrics are just getting worse and worse—”

“ _Oh, Louis, I’m falling for you_.”

It’s that last line that makes Louis stop, and all he can do is stare wide-eyed at Harry as Harry tries his best to launch into a guitar solo on Louis’ acoustic guitar. _Oh, Louis, I’m falling for you_ , he thinks, and that’s…that’s just random, right? _Of_ _course_ Harry’s not falling for him, he was probably just drunk and making up random song lyrics. After all, most songs are about love, so there’s no wonder why Harry would sing that. He was probably just making a parody of a love song. Yeah, that’s probably it.

“Grammy-winning!” Harry shouts, brandishing the guitar in the air, before running a hand through his curls. He smiles mischievously at Louis, his green eyes sparkling, his dimples deep in, and _he’s so beautiful_ that Louis is struck dumb, finding himself unable to breathe. Harry’s beautiful and singing about falling for Louis and Louis wants to kiss him and Louis _has_ kissed him before, loads of times, and suddenly it’s all he can see, him and Harry kissing and him and Harry holding hands and him waking up to Harry right next to him _again_ and he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t—

“Your turn!” Harry says, handing him the guitar, and Louis feels himself exhale, the overwhelming feeling suddenly disappearing again.

 _It’s probably just the alcohol_ , he tells himself. _I’m just so, so drunk_.

But, as he takes the guitar from Harry, looks into Harry’s beaming, excited, drunkenly-beautiful face, he starts to think that maybe having this forever wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe forever doesn’t need Zayn; maybe he can have something just like this, just him and Harry, drunk and writing shitty songs on his guitar.

Yeah. That doesn’t sound so bad at all.

. . .

“I’m leaving,” Harry says out of the blue, a week into his visit.

Louis blinks up at him from where he’s lying upside down on his couch. “Wait, what?” He asks, and if his voice cracks a little, Louis fully blames it on the blood that’s currently rushing to his head.

Harry, however, must think it’s something else because his eyes are going wide. “Oh no, not like, leaving _leaving_ ,” he says, as if that makes sense. “I meant like, going out for a little while, seeing some people. I just got called into a last-minute meeting,” he shrugs. “Thought maybe I’d go.”

It’s a Sunday. Louis hadn’t really planned for them to do anything the whole day—he’d mostly just thought they’d lie around the flat, watch those dumb teenage films on Netflix for the hell of it, and maybe go out for food later once they feel hungry enough. Which means that there isn’t really anything stopping Harry from going out, if he’s got better plans.

Louis doesn’t know why the thought leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Harry’s _allowed_ to go out. He’s an independent person who doesn’t belong to Louis in any style, shape or form. Just because Louis wants to spend a bit of quality time with him, doesn’t mean that he has the right to force Harry to stay.

He doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he says, “A last-minute meeting? I truly don’t understand your definition of ‘vacation’.”

Harry shrugs. “It happens. The organic, fair-trade, nitrogen-infused coffee business is a bit of a stressful trade.”

“Yeah, right, I bet it’s only `cause you smuggle drugs in there or summat.”

Harry doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “Don’t stay upside down for too long,” he says instead, grabbing his jacket from where its slung on the coat rack. “Your head might explode.”

“I’ll get up when Spiderman kisses me,” says Louis, puckering up his lips.

Harry rolls his eyes fondly. “You’ll be waiting a long time, then,” he says, then he’s slipping on his boots and heading out.

Louis waits until he hears the click of the door before sighing and pushing himself right-side up. His vision spins a little, and he gives himself a few minutes to recover, let everything go back to normal. It’s not like he’s got anything pressing to do, anyway.

It’s strange, he thinks as he turns on the telly, that Harry’s only been here a week and yet the flat now seems ridiculously huge without him. Ridiculously empty, too—Louis knows that Harry goes out when he’s at work, but for some reason Harry’s always there when Louis gets home, using his phone or cooking in the kitchen. And now, it’s Louis’ first time being alone in the flat since Harry arrived, and he finds that he’s not really sure how to deal with that at all.

Somehow, Harry’s carved himself into Louis’ flat, hid himself in places that Louis wouldn’t think to look, and now Louis can’t shake him off, can’t turnover a single pebble and not find some evidence of Harry _there_. He finds himself suddenly missing the loud singing from the shower, or the smell of something cooking in the kitchen. He misses the sound of Harry’s ugly laugh when Louis says something particularly scathing and/or funny, the small, lopsided grin Harry would give Louis when he’s planning something particularly devious. The ruckus he makes when he’s digging through Louis’ stuff, trying to find something interesting to play with. The way he insists on only watching rom-coms on Netflix, to the point that Louis’ _Because You Watched_ … section is now littered with films that Louis would only _think_ to watch when bored and drunk. The way his breathing gets deep and even when he’s too tired and can’t finish the film. All those things, and then some.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like L.A. again. Louis doesn’t know what to make of that revelation.

 _But L.A. had been a different life_ , Louis tells himself, flicking through Netflix and trying to find something to watch that doesn’t scream _Harry!_ at him. L.A. was something else, something that Louis doesn’t consider to be a part of real life. L.A. wasn’t a mistake, per se, but it was more like…an oversight. A lapse in judgment that left him with an attractive, Englishman-living-in-L.A. and a big jumble of feelings regarding said Englishman. Feelings that Louis thought he’d already managed to sort out years ago.

Louis shakes his head, tries to clear his mind of thoughts of _feelings_ and L.A. Harry and he are friends, and Harry’s here to help Louis out _as a friend_. That’s all this is.

Besides, Louis doubts that Harry would want anything more than friendship from him, considering how L.A. had ended.

He settles on a zombie film that he’s pretty sure Harry would never watch, distracts himself with mindless violence and bloodshed. After that he watches another one, and another one, and when Harry texts _coming home now_ _:)_ Louis’ already managed to go through four zombie films without really paying attention to them and has ordered Chinese food for the both of them.

Harry’s eyes widen when he comes into the flat. “Lou?” He asks, shrugging of his jacket. “Did you…cook?”

“Yes,” Louis answers, handing him a carton when he comes into the living area. “Cooked and packaged them like how they do in actual Chinese takeaway restaurants.”

Harry sits on the couch beside Louis a smile tugging on his lips. “Amazing,” he says, taking the carton Louis hands him. “You can open an authentic Chinese restaurant now.”

“Always been my career goal,” Louis replies without hesitation. “You know, sometimes I think that maybe I was Chinese in a past life.”

“Plausible,” Harry says. “I think maybe I was a flower.” He looks at the telly, scrunches his nose at the zombies still on the screen, and points to one. “By the way, I can totally see you dating a guy like that.”

“Shut up,” Louis answers, flicking his rice at him. Harry flicks the rice right back, and it’s easy, so easy like this, and it’s something Louis doesn’t want to lose, just because of his jumbled ball of feelings.

He gets shaken out of his thoughts by Harry stealing the remote. “We’re watching something else now,” Harry declares, and Louis can only shake his head fondly as Harry navigates to the rom-com section of Netflix.

. . .

“Louis,” someone says the next day, and Louis looks up from the article he’s editing to find Steve standing outside his office door. “Everything alright in here?”

“Sure, yeah,” Louis says, smiling at him. “Just editing a few articles for tomorrow’s paper. Anything I can do for you?”

“Actually yeah,” Steve replies, and when he comes closer, he sees lines of worry on his forehead. “So, a few of our writers fell through.”

Louis blinks. “Oh.” He straightens up, dropping the pen from his hand. “That doesn’t sound too good.”

“It isn’t,” Steve replies solemnly. He looks genuinely worried, and Steve has always been the type of person that isn’t fazed by anything, even if things don’t go right. It’s exactly why he’s made such a good editor-in-chief. For him to be worried means that it’s something _big_. “We’re missing a total of five articles.”

Louis’ eyes bulge out. “ _Five_?”

Steve sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Yeah,” he says. “It wasn’t a good day. Anyway, I was going to ask you to get two articles together in time for printing later. Grimshaw’s already got the other three filled with fluffers.”

“Uh, okay,” Louis says, his head spinning at the news. Two articles. Two _extra_ articles.

It’s five p.m. The paper goes to print at ten, in order to make it in time for the midnight delivery. Louis still needs to finish editing the articles on his desk, and _now_ he needs to pull two more out of thin air for his section.

Steve must read the panic on his face, because he’s shooting Louis a reassuring smile. Or at least, a semblance of it. “Don’t worry, I think if you talk to Bebe, you could assign the last two articles to the interns. Or at least, get them to help you out.”

“Yeah, okay,” Louis says, staring down at the highlighter-marked paper on his desk. Maybe I’ll do that.

. . .

Except, it doesn’t work out as well as he’d hoped.

Bebe does get them to write the articles, but seeing as it’d been assigned at the end of the work day, the work is…half-arsed, at best. One person wrote about basketball, which _would’ve_ been okay, except for the fact that it’s really quite obvious that they didn’t know shit about it (it’s a _free throw,_ not a _free shot_ , for one). Another decided to write an opinion piece, and wrote almost a _thousand_ words about why England will win the World Cup and how _it’s coming home_ , a sentiment Louis understands but doesn’t appreciate, considering the extent of their readership and the quickly approaching deadline.

And of course, because he can’t really keep the interns overtime without prior notice, and because he’s the sports editor of the paper, it falls to Louis to essentially edit—ahem, _rewrite_ —all this. To add to that, it’s seven p.m., which means he’s got about three hours to render this mess into something publishable.

So he sighs, texts Harry that he’ll be coming home late, picks up a pen and gets to work.

. . .

It’s about an hour later, just when Louis is angrily slashing out paragraphs on the basketball article, when there’s movement in his peripheral vision.

“Knock knock,” someone says cheerily, and Louis looks up, finds Harry standing by his office door, pigeon-toed and grinning. “Working hard?”

“Harry,” Louis says, a little shocked. He rubs the residual blurriness from his eyes, just to make sure that Harry’s _really_ here, and not a product of his mentally-exhausted brain. “What are you—how’d you get in here?”

“Liam,” Harry answers easily, taking a few steps into the room and slipping into the empty seat in front of Louis’ desk. “Ran into him on his way out, but he was very happy to let me in.”

Louis can’t help it, he frowns angrily. “Can’t believe Liam gets to leave,” he huffs, pouting down at the article on his desk. “Meanwhile, I have to stay and get these done before printing later.”

Harry hums. “I’ll help you,” he says earnestly. In front of Louis, he sets down a paper bag Louis hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “Sushi,” he explains, when Louis shoots him a questioning glance. “It’s for you.”

At those words, Louis suddenly realizes just how hungry he is. He quickly pulls out the carton from the bag and pops it open, feeling his stomach grumble as he takes sight of the sushi rolls in front of him. He’s just about to pick one up, when he realizes just how desperate he looks. “Um, thanks,” he says belatedly. “How much do I owe you?”

Harry waves a hand, his eyes sparkling. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Now, what do we have to do?”

Louis shakes his head. “You know, you don’t have to stay—” he begins, but Harry cuts him off.

“No way.” Harry shakes his head, one hand grabbing the article Louis was editing off his desk. “I don’t really have anything else to do. Besides, I came here to visit you, and so I’m going to spend as much time with you as I can.” Louis watches as he scans the article quickly, his green eyes flitting through the paper, before making a face. “Okay, who wrote this?”

Louis sighs. “An intern,” he says, picking up a piece of sushi and popping it in his mouth. “They were excited to go home.”

Harry clicks his tongue. “Makes sense,” he muses, then reaches for Louis’ pen.

“Wait,” Louis stutters, as Harry slashes out something. “What are you doing?”

Harry shrugs. “Helping you out,” he says simply. He writes something beside the sentence he’d slashed out—Louis tries to look, but from his angle, he can’t really see anything.

Louis blinks at him. “You don’t have to.”

“I _want_ to,” Harry says simply, still slashing things out on the paper. “You clearly need the help, and literally _everyone_ has gone home except you.”

That’s…not entirely inaccurate, but still. “You _can’t_ ,” Louis says, reaching over to swipe the paper out of Harry’s hand.

Harry, however, holds it out of Louis’ reach and raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Louis shakes his head. “Harry, it’s not your job to do this,” he says.

“I know it’s not,” Harry replies. “But it’s my job to help you out, as a friend.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yes, but I only meant that you should help me out _for the wedding_ ,” he emphasizes. “Not do my job for me. Go back to the flat, Harry, I’ll catch up with you later.”

At this, Harry gives him a look, one that makes Louis fall quiet. “Look, Lou, I genuinely don’t mind,” he says, his green eyes uncharacteristically serious. “I care about you, which means I’m going to do everything I can to make life much easier for you.”

 _I care about you_. Louis doesn’t know why his brain gets stuck on those words, the rest of the world filtering out, turning into white noise. At the back of his mind, he’s always known that Harry cares for him—Harry’s his friend, after all, and he wouldn’t be here in London otherwise—but something about hearing it out loud makes his heart thump unevenly in his chest, makes his palms a little sweaty. Suddenly, he feels like hiding his face in the collar of his shirt, hiding himself under his duvet, and that’s, that’s a weird reaction, isn’t it, to a friend of yours saying that _they care about you_.

 _Maybe Harry isn’t just a friend_ , a tiny, treacherous voice in his brain says, and Louis squashes that thought down, buries it before it can even gain traction. This isn’t L.A., this is London, and in London, Louis’ feelings towards Harry are different. Louis _himself_ is different.

“Lou?” Harry’s voice breaks through Louis’ thoughts, and Louis forces himself to meet Harry’s gentle, green eyes, stamps down every feeling that pops up in relation to those eyes. “You okay?”

Despite his confusion, Louis can’t help but smile. “Yeah,” he says, then clears his throat, shakes his head. “You still can’t help me out though.”

“I don’t like the word _can’t_ ,” Harry declares.

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Okay, what if I said you _can’t_ go home? Does that mean you’ll go and prove me wrong?”

Harry rolls his eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting. “Shut up and finish your sushi,” he says, and starts slashing out things again.

And Louis loathes to admit it, but everything becomes a whole lot easier with Harry.

He’s insightful, commenting certain things on articles that usually wouldn’t even occur to Louis. He’s not shy with the editing either—he practically rewrites one of the interns’ articles, rewriting sentences and scribbling them on the margins of the paper, despite Louis’ continuously telling him that he doesn’t have to do that. He’s calm, level-headed, and he apparently has the uncanny ability to sense when Louis’ on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because every time Louis gets close to panicking, Harry either cracks a horrible joke or starts a long, nonsensical story, one that confuses Louis so much that he ends up forgetting to panic.

It’s nine p.m. when Louis deems the articles publishable, and by that time Harry has managed to stop Louis’ nervous breakdown about ten times. He quickly types it up onto a document, then sends it off to George for layout and printing. He breathes a huge sigh of relief when he finally presses _send_ on his email, because somehow, _somehow,_ they made it with time to spare.

When he looks up, he finds Harry just looking at him, his green eyes intent. Louis feels a strange burst of warmth in his chest, and he meets Harry’s eyes, leans forward in his seat. “Thank you,” he says, as sincerely as he can muster, and then reaches forward to tap Harry’s hand lightly. “Let’s go home?”

The corners of Harry’s mouth turn up, just a little. “Yeah,” Harry agrees, and he catches Louis’ hand in his for a split second, before letting go. Louis pretends this doesn’t affect him, pretends that his fingers don’t tingle from the contact. “Let’s go home.”

. . .

Somehow, Zayn’s bachelor party manages to creep up on him.

Not that Louis forgot about it. He’d known it was happening, in the back of his mind—the same way he knows that the sky is blue or that the grass is green. It’s something he hadn’t given much thought to.

Until of course, he’s sitting at a table in the middle of Zayn’s favourite, upscale club, all dressed up, with Harry to his right and Zayn to his left.

Ideally, Louis had planned that by Zayn’s bachelor party, he should’ve already managed to stop the wedding. He should’ve already admitted his feelings to Zayn, should’ve already made Zayn call off the wedding. He should’ve already made Zayn realize that he loves Louis, that he’s still _in love_ with Louis, and that he shouldn’t be marrying Gigi Hadid. But he’d been so preoccupied with Harry that Louis hadn’t been able to do anything to that effect.

But it’s not too late. The night is still young. He still might be able to make something happen, so long as he doesn’t let himself get distracted by Harry.

It shouldn’t be that hard to do. Harry may be incredibly attractive and all, but all Louis has to do is not stare at him for extended periods of time. He can do it. He’s a grown man. He’s got _resolve_.

Just as he thinks that, one of Harry’s hands fall onto his thigh, Harry using it to push himself up from his seat. “I’ll take one,” he says to Zayn, who’s passing out tequila shots, and leans into Louis’ personal space to grab the shot Zayn holds out to him. His artfully-styled curls brush against Louis’ nose, and Louis manages to take a whiff of Harry’s cologne, something musky and smoky and no doubt, expensive.

Louis forces himself not to chase Harry’s scent, to lean into the warmth of his body. Harry squeezes Louis’ thigh gently, for a split second, and then his hand is gone, leaving a warmth that feels a little bit like a brand on his thigh and a sudden jumble of feelings in Louis’ chest.

Louis exhales slowly, bites his lip, then downs the shot Zayn passes out to him. It burns as it goes down, but he pays it no mind.

This is going to be a lot harder than he thought it would be.

. . .

A few hours (or shots) later, Louis is pleasantly tipsy, the alcohol settling into his bloodstream nicely. Harry had gone off somewhere with Niall and Liam, and now, it’s just Louis and Zayn and half a bucket of beers. Louis’ got Zayn’s full attention on him—Zayn’s drunk enough that he’s trying to tell a story over the noise of the club, and Louis follows his mouth as he speaks, attempting to lipread. It’s a story about one of his art showings—something about a rowdy man and a failed attempt at an art heist, and it’s clearly a fond memory for Zayn, who’s laughing as he retells it to Louis.

“—shit, Lou,” Zayn says, shaking his head. “It was so shit at the time, but it’s just really funny right now. I can’t believe you’ve never heard this story!”

Louis shakes his head, grinning. “I can’t believe it either,” he tells Zayn, taking in the way the corner of his eyes crinkle, the way his nose scrunches up. It’s no secret that Zayn’s incredibly attractive—before, Louis had always thought that if he were an artist, Zayn would be the first person he’d want to draw, first person he’d want to render in charcoal and colour in paint “How was I not there when this happened? I always attend all your gallery showings.”

Zayn shrugs, still smiling. “I don’t know,” he says, thinking about it. “I think it happened, like three years ago? I forgot what happened.”

 _Three years ago_. And at once, it dawns on Louis. “Oh,” he says. “It was probably when I was in L.A.”

He doesn’t say more than that, but judging how Zayn’s expression changes, he probably realizes what Louis’ thinking about.

“Oh,” Zayn says, suddenly so quiet that Louis has to strain to hear his voice. “Yeah, probably.” He doesn’t speak for a few moments, the silence broken by the noise of the club. “God, I remember that. That time in my life was just. Shit.”

Louis tries not to get his hopes up. “It was?”

Zayn sighs. “Yeah,” he says, something unreadable in his eyes. “I mean, despite everything, you were still my best friend, Lou, and you were in L.A. and you weren’t speaking to me for _three months_. I was devastated.”

“You were?” And Louis’ heart starts hammering, his palms getting a little bit sweaty. Louis hadn’t known that Zayn was _devastated_ when he left. Sure, he’d known that Zayn loved him then, and breaking up with someone you love is never easy, but Zayn had always seemed like he moved on much quicker than Louis did, always made it seem like he picked himself almost immediately, with hardly any effort involved.

“Of course I was,” Zayn replies, like it’s obvious. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Louis swallows a bit nervously, curls his fingers into his palms. “Because,” he says slowly, carefully, “you broke up with me.”

And they haven’t spoken about it, haven’t brought it up since three years ago, when Louis had impulsively flown to L.A. after Zayn broke up with him, and Zayn called him there and they had a long talk about how they both felt towards each other. It was three months until Louis saw Zayn again, and when he did, Zayn had hugged him, said he’d missed his mate, and never let him go again. Meanwhile, Louis had been happy to just be around Zayn, to still be considered one of his closest friends, that he’d just…pretended it never happened.

Until tonight.

The expression on Zayn’s face doesn’t change, but something like regret flickers through his eyes. “I did,” he admits. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not devastated that I had to.”

 _That I had to_. “Why did you have to?” Louis can’t help himself from asking, the alcohol loosening his tongue, his inhibitions.

Zayn sighs again. “I don’t…I don’t know,” he replies, and _this_ , this is far too personal a conversation to be having in the middle of a club during Zayn’s bachelor party. Louis should’ve planned this better. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He shrugs, and despite the dim light, his brown eyes reflect something sad, something helpless. “It _felt_ like the right thing to do at the time.”

 _But now?_ Louis wants to ask, the words on the tip of his tongue, but he spots movement at the corner of his eye, turns and finds Harry laughing with Niall, a hand on his shoulder like a friendly gesture.

And Louis doesn’t know why, but his mind goes blank—suddenly, all he wants to do is go over there, to where Harry is, position himself at his side. Feel Harry’s large, warm hand on his hip, bury his nose into Harry’s neck, where the smell of his _fucking expensive_ cologne is strongest.

He doesn’t do any of that, but _God_ , he wants to.

There’s a hand on his arm suddenly, and Louis turns to see Zayn, his eyes glued on his phone. “Gi’s calling,” he says apologetically. “Sorry, I’ll be right back, let me just take this.”

Louis manages to shoot Zayn a smile, watching as he walks to a quieter corner of the club. He settles back into his seat, casts a furtive eye towards the club, back to where Harry and Niall are standing. Niall, he finds, is already in conversation with someone else—a girl in a crop top with dark hair, Louis notes—and Harry is nowhere to be found.

Which. Is fine. He’s not Harry’s keeper, anyway. Harry can go and do whatever he wants.

That thought makes him feel uneasy, like a heavy stone dropping into the pit of his stomach. Harry’s just…always been something so confusing, to him. He’s definitely Louis’ friend, Louis doesn’t doubt that, but sometimes it’s as if his own _mind_ doesn’t remember that, acts like Harry is something _more_. For the past few weeks, Louis has felt like he’s regressed three years, a part of his brain—the part that had been forged and developed in L.A., the part he’d tried to forget once he’d gotten back to London—once again making an appearance, rearing its head.

There’s just something in Harry that draws Louis’ subconscious to him, that reaches out to him. It’s as if it’s muscle memory—his eyes are always going to spot Harry in a crowd and his hands are always going to itch to touch him and his heart is always going to protest at the sight of Harry standing next to somebody that isn’t him. But following that train of thought is a _dangerous_ spiral, one that could lead to a huge mess, a lot of confusion, maybe a broken heart, and quite possibly, Louis losing a friend.

Louis shakes his head, decides to leave that tangle of thoughts alone and forces himself to think of anything else.

Of course, this means his mind wanders back to Zayn. Zayn, who’s on the phone with his fiancée, probably updating her about everything that’s happening in his bachelor party. Zayn, who had gotten down on one knee, and proposed to someone that isn’t him. Zayn, who was Louis’ first before he was any fucking supermodel’s. Zayn, who, Louis is pretty sure, still loves him back.

Zayn had said that breaking up with him had felt like the right thing to do. The helplessness in his eyes, however, and the way he phrased his words— _at the time_ —makes Louis think otherwise. There was _regret_ in those words, audible in Zayn’s voice even above the din of the club. And he’d told Louis that he’d been devastated when he broke up with Louis and Louis flew to L.A. Those aren’t the words of someone who’d simply been sad about a friend not speaking to him. Louis had meant a lot to Zayn then, probably a lot more than Zayn himself realized.

And yet, Gigi _fucking_ Hadid is still the one who gets to marry him. Not Louis. As if that girl didn’t already have everything she could possibly want.

His thoughts get interrupted by someone sliding into the seat beside him roughly. Liam grins at him, bright and incredibly drunk. “I have alcohol!” He exclaims, brandishing the tequila bottle in his hand. He sets it down on the table, and Louis wastes no time in grabbing the shot glasses that came with it, filling three up, and downing them in quick succession.

“It’s not for you,” Liam complains mildly, watching him. Louis fills up another shot glass just for that comment.

“Were you planning on drinking it all by yourself?” Louis asks, and takes the shot.

“No, I—” Liam seems to realize that Louis’ the only one at the table. “Hey, I’m alone.”

“I’m here,” Louis says, affronted.

Liam ignores him. “Where’d everyone go?”

“I’m also here,” a voice Louis can’t _not_ recognize says, and then there’s a warm body sliding into the seat on Louis’ other side. Louis’ heart flutters, and he steels himself, turns and finds Harry, disheveled and tipsy and _so very beautiful_. Harry’s not looking at him however; he takes the bottle from the table, pours himself a shot, and throws it back easily—Louis watches the line of his throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“It’s not for you, either,” Liam says, huffing.

Louis’ eyes are glued to Harry’s face; he doesn’t miss the way Harry’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Then who is it _for_?” Harry asks Liam.

Liam has to think about it. “People,” he eventually settles on.

Harry rolls his eyes, a small, amused smile, forming on his lips. He nudges Louis. “You’re awfully quiet,” he says. “From what I remember of you, you’re usually the first one on the dance floor, dancing and scream-singing. Guess time really does change people.”

Louis shakes his head. “Just thinking,” he tells Harry honestly. The alcohol from the shots is doing its work, and he can feel himself beginning to crossover from ‘pleasantly tipsy’ to ‘drunk’. “Zayn’s getting married in three days, you know.”

“How could I forget,” Harry says. “That’s the only reason you wanted me here.”

Louis frowns. “That’s not true,” he says, huffing a little. Beside him, Liam picks up his bottle of tequila and slides out of their booth, wandering off. “I always want you here.”

The smirk on Harry’s face looks almost self-deprecating. “Sure,” he says, and changes the subject. “I saw you guys were talking earlier. Is he going to cancel the wedding yet?”

Louis taps an empty shot glass on the table. “Well, we hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Were you at least tell him that you were still in love with him?”

“Nope.”

Harry rolls his eyes playfully. “What did you both talk about, then? It seemed like a pretty serious conversation.”

“Just mostly about three years ago,” Louis tells him easily. “About when we broke up.”

Harry doesn’t say anything for a few moments.  Then, “you didn’t tell me he broke up with you three years ago.”

Oh, right. That had been a fact Louis had _conveniently_ left out, so as not to hurt Harry’s feelings. His face heats up, but he’s not sure if it’s because of the alcohol or the embarrassment.

Despite it though, he still can’t bring himself to look away from Harry. It’s as if his eyes don’t want to miss even the tiniest flicker of expression, the smallest nuance on Harry’s gorgeous face.

Harry chews on his bottom lip in thought. Louis finds himself zeroing in on his bottom lip. “Was it before or after L.A.?” He asks.

And Louis doesn’t want to answer, but Harry is looking at him strangely, and Harry deserves the explanation, and he _can’t say no_ to Harry when sober, so his resolve when drunk is practically non-existent.

“Before,” he says honestly, his eyes flitting back up to Harry’s. “Actually, he’s kind of the reason I…went to L.A. in the first place.”

Harry doesn’t say anything for a few moments, his face shuttering into an expression of hurt. After a while, it clears up. “I see,” he says, a forced lightness to his voice. “Sorry, I forgot for a moment that I was the distraction.”

At that comment, Louis flinches. “What? You’re—”

“Don’t worry about it, Lou,” Harry says, and he sounds. Well. He sounds normal, but there’s an acceptance to it that makes guilt seize in Louis’ chest. “I’ve already accepted it. I’m supposed to distract you when you’re sad, I’m supposed to help you out through this dumb plan of yours. That was what you told me to do, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

Harry grins, and it’s _terrible_ , under the dim lights. “I mean, it’s okay, really. I just didn’t expect that I was one three years ago but,” he shrugs. “You don’t expect things, sometimes.”

 _I didn’t expect you_ , Louis wants to retort back, but somehow, the words get stuck in his throat, die on his tongue. It’s the truth though—Louis had gone to L.A. to visit his sister and nurse a broken heart. He hadn’t expected a charming, dimpled barista to appear in his life, nor did he expect for the barista to _stay_.

The edges of Louis’ vision are beginning to spin; he blinks again and again, trying to force it to stop, to make it stay still. It’s bothering him—Louis can’t properly construct what he wants to tell Harry if things that aren’t supposed to be moving are moving.

“Sleepy?” Harry asks, probably misinterpreting the blinks.

Louis shakes his head. “Everything is _moving_ ,” he complains.

“Drunk, then,” Harry corrects, with a quiet sigh, and Louis shrugs, slides down to lean his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry lets him, of course, one of his hands finding its perch on Louis’ thigh. Louis’ skin burns where his hand is, and without thinking too much of it, he picks up Harry’s hand, twines their fingers together.

“You have really nice hands,” he tells Harry.

He feels, rather than hears, Harry’s laugh. “Definitely drunk.” He doesn’t do anything to pull his hand away.

“It’s true.” Louis insists, using his thumb to rub at the back of Harry’s hand. He lifts his head up, turns to face Harry. His vision spins, just a little bit. “They’re really nice.”

A dimple appears on Harry’s cheek. “Okay,” Harry says. “Thanks.”

“I like them,” Louis says unnecessarily, before pulling his hand away from Harry’s. He finds himself reaching up, pressing a finger onto the cheek with Harry’s dimple. “But not as much as I like your face.”

It’s a testament to how focused he is on Harry that despite his drunkenness, he spots Harry’s quiet intake of breath, the way his lips part ever so slightly. “I think it’s time for us to go home.”

Louis pouts at him. “But I haven’t danced yet.” Now that the alcohol seems to have done its job, he finds himself itching to dance, wanting to get lost in a mass of writhing bodies and top forty pop music. “I want to dance, Harry.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asks, and he sounds a bit too skeptical for someone who’s also supposed to have alcohol in him. Louis needs to remedy that—Liam is still somewhere in here, brandishing a tequila bottle like a sword and the only way for him to get alcohol in Harry is if they actually get up from this damn table and find him.

Louis nods. “I want to dance,” he repeats, pushing himself up from the table. He catches Harry’s hand in his, twines their fingers together once more. “I want to dance with _you_.”

He doesn’t give Harry a chance to answer, he just uses all his strength to pull Harry up and towards the dance floor. He doesn’t have to do it for long; eventually Harry untangles their fingers, moves closer to Louis, and steers him to the throng of people with a hand on his lower back.

Louis isn’t sure what happens after that—it’s all a blur of movement, sound and feeling. The songs segue into the next and then the next, and it’s all Louis can do to move with the crowd, to keep himself upright. He finds Niall in the midst of the crowd, with his shirt off and someone’s number scribbled on his chest, and he looks absolutely ridiculous that Louis laughs at him, and Niall laughs right back before slinging an arm around his shoulder, leading him to Liam, who’s also got his shirt off and is crowing something about taking shots.

He looks up at Harry, who’s right beside him—did he leave? Louis can’t remember, but he thinks drunkenly that Harry should never leave, should always be right there with him—and Harry looks at him and shakes his head, pulls Louis away from the shot-administering tandem that is Liam and Niall.

Of course, this means they end up somewhere at the edge of the club, in the hallway leading to the bathroom. Louis leans his head back against the wall and tries to catch his breath, his heart hammering and his head spinning. His vision shifts and blurs, before focusing on Harry, who’s looking at Louis with an expression he can’t read.

Louis blinks at him. “We haven’t danced yet.” It comes out a bit as a slur, his tongue clumsy from the alcohol.

Harry chuckles. “We haven’t.”

Louis’ vision suddenly tilts, his stomach lurching the way it does when it feels like he’s falling, before there’s two large, warm hands on his hips, righting him. “Woah, careful, there,” Harry says, sounding amused. “Can’t have you dying on me.”

Louis huffs. “I’m not going to _die_ ,” he says haughtily. Its effect is probably lessened by the way he tips over again, and its instinct that makes him reach up and wrap his arms around Harry’s neck for support.

This close, Louis can see the sweat beading on Harry’s upper lip, can feel Harry’s warm breath ghosting on his face. Can see Harry’s individual eyelashes, and he _could_ probably count them, if he could only remember how numbers work. “I don’t think you’d let me die.”

“You’re right,” Harry says, smiling, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with their proximity; Louis decides that they should always be this close to each other. His grip on Louis tightens ever so slightly. “I won’t.”

“And why is that?” Louis asks, unable to stop himself from talking. It feels somewhat like he’s on the edge of the precipice, about to cross over and fall. There’s something unravelling here—like he’s pulling a piece wool on a knitted sweater, watching the whole thing fall apart.

It’s the first time during this conversation that Harry’s expression flickers, changes into something less amused, more earnest, more sincere. He looks almost sad, and Louis thinks of the way he looked, three years ago, when Louis had kissed him for the last time, when Louis had said goodbye at the airport. Louis’ heart had ached then, but he knew he was doing the right thing. He and Harry couldn’t have a future, anyway. It’s not like they’re going to wake up one day, and America and England would magically be sharing a border.

Harry shakes his head, his eyes flickering down to the floor. “You know why,” he says, sounding a bit ashamed.

Drunkenly, Louis thinks: _a dangerous spiral_. Around and around, deeper and deeper, smaller and smaller circles. He can’t really remember why it’s so bad now.

There’s a reason why Harry had flown all the way to London, at Louis’ call. There’s a reason why Harry agreed to help Louis out with his stupid plan, despite his doubts about it. There’s a reason why, these past two weeks, wherever Louis would turn, Harry would be there, smiling and looking so devastatingly beautiful that sometimes, Louis would find it a little bit harder to breathe.

Louis had chalked it up to Harry simply being a good friend—he’d been adamant at keeping touch, after all—but the alcohol turns his thinking around, slots the puzzle pieces together in a different way, and forms a clearer picture than anything he had come up with before.

Three years. _Three years_.

And that’s why it’s easy—almost nothing, even—for one of Louis’ hands to slip into Harry’s hair, play with the soft curls at his nape. He pays no mind to the hammering of his heart, just waits until Harry’s eyes flicker back up at him, sheepishly.

Then Louis surges forward and kisses him.

He tastes strongly of tequila and alcohol, but his lips are soft and familiar beneath Louis’ own. Louis’ head spins at the sensation, his mind flashing back to _Harry’s touch_ and _Harry’s kisses_ and to _Harry_ , three years ago in L.A., who’d held his hand openly, kissed him easily. Harry, who treated— _treats_ —Louis with utmost care, who touched— _touches_ —Louis like he’s something special, who looked— _looks_ —at Louis like he contained the world, the universe, and all the secrets in between.

For a few seconds, Harry doesn’t move. Then, he takes a small step back, his hands falling from Louis’ hips. A flash of disappointment courses through Louis, swept away by the feel of Harry’s hands on his face. Louis pushes himself forward, kisses Harry with everything he has, and finally, _finally_ , Harry responds, tilting his head to deepen the kiss, slipping his tongue into Louis’ mouth.

And it’s _good_ —Harry kisses the same way Louis remembers, the _exact_ way Louis likes, a faint roughness to the intensity that always manages to make Louis’ toes curl, a gentleness like he’s afraid of hurting Louis. Harry presses him back against the wall, his other hand bracketing Louis’ head, and it’s all Louis can do to hold on, to kiss Harry with everything he’s got.

And then, two things happen, almost simultaneously:

The sound of movement, of footsteps, of another person in their seclusion; and

A familiar voice that makes Louis feel like he’s been doused in ice cold water. “Oh, sorry, I’ll just—”

Louis flinches back, his eyes fixating onto the person behind Harry’s shoulder—at _Zayn_ , who’s standing at the hallway they’re in. He’s looking everywhere else except at Louis, and Louis feels his stomach drop at the thought of Zayn seeing them.

He pushes Harry off him. “Zayn, it’s not what you think,” he says, and that makes Harry flinch, hurt etching on his features as he takes a step back. Louis shoulders past him to Zayn, who had looked at him when he spoke. “It was--it's nothing.”

“It’s fine, Louis,” Zayn says. He looks to be smiling, but there’s a strange sort of sadness on his face. He points to the bathroom door. “I can just use the other one.”

“Zayn, wait—” Louis says, but Zayn’s gone, disappearing back into the throng of people in the club. Louis makes to follow, but something in him makes him stop, makes him turn towards Harry, still standing in the hallway.

Harry doesn’t look at him. Louis swallows, opens his mouth to say something, changes his mind and leaves.

. . .

When Louis wakes up, it’s around two in the afternoon, and he’s sprawled on his bed, still wearing most of his clothes. His head is pounding, and there’s a full glass of water and a tablet of paracetamol on his night stand, both of which he drinks gratefully.

After a while, he realizes that his happiness is short-lived. Because when he stumbles out of his room and into Harry’s, intent on asking him if he wants to grab something to eat, he finds all of Harry’s things gone.

. . .

L.A. had been…something.

Not a mistake, though—Louis would never call anything that has to do with Harry a mistake. It was a carelessness, something Louis had completely overlooked, something Louis simply shouldn’t have done.

It had been three weeks since he’d arrived at Lottie’s place in L.A., a month since Zayn broke up with him. Lottie had been extremely tolerant since he’d arrived, never once raising her voice at him, but even she was getting to the end of her patience. At the time, Louis hardly ever left his room despite Lottie’s continuous pleas for him to stop moping.

So one day, she’d taken a day off, and forcibly dragged Louis out of bed and onto a random bus.

L.A., Louis found, was much different from London, in the sense that it was much harder to find your way around. There wasn’t a tube to rely on, so they had to make do with buses, hopping off one and onto another. Louis would have been worried about getting lost, but Lottie had lived in L.A. for about two years now, and seemed to know where they were going.

It was fun, Louis had to admit. Lottie took him to see the iconic sights of LA—the Hollywood Sign, Santa Monica Pier, The Grove, and Beverly Hills—and for a day it felt like Louis was whole again; like he just hadn’t had his heart ripped out by the love of his life. He found himself laughing with abandon, whining when Lottie asked him to take a million photos of her for her Instagram, and generally just having a good time.

He doesn’t remember why, but somewhere along Beverly Hills, he and Lottie ended up at a coffee shop, bickering. He doesn’t remember its name—it was probably something generic like _NitroBean_ —nor does he remember what he and Lottie were arguing about, but he clearly remembers the barista.

“Hi,” said the boy behind the counter, with bright green eyes and curly brown hair down his shoulders. He had an English accent when he spoke, and his cheeks dimpled as he smiled at Louis. “Can I get you anything?”

Even then, Harry had been arresting.

It was the combination of Louis’ good mood and a cute boy that made him a little daring, made flirt a little with him while ordering. Harry had responded in kind, laughing easily, and, when he’d handed Louis and Lottie their drinks, his number was scribbled messily on the side Louis’ cup, like an afterthought.

And after that, it was hard to get rid of Harry.

Not that Louis wanted to, of course. Harry was smart and funny and kind, and he was clearly a bit nervous when he’d asked Louis out to coffee. He drove a motorcycle, which Louis freaked out about when he first saw it, but even back then Harry was careful, his brow furrowing as he made sure Louis was okay, and it was just so easy for Louis to trust him. Louis kissed him on their second date, tipsy from good company and the wine they’d been drinking, and by the end of two weeks Louis spent most nights in Harry’s place, only coming back to Lottie’s in the morning.

It was a bit fast and a little bit reckless, but _God_ , it was good. It was a bubble of contentment, of domesticity; Louis would wake up to Harry’s sleeping face almost every day, his chest rising and falling; Louis would listen to Harry singing in the shower, loudly; Louis see Harry off to work every day; and Louis would cuddle up with Harry on the couch in the evening, watching shitty shows on Netflix.

And then Zayn called.

Louis had locked himself in his room at Lottie’s place when he did, and they spent four hours talking, discussing what they were to each other, and catching up on each other’s lives. Zayn had always been the person to whom Louis would talk to at the end of the day, the one who’d know every single detail as it happened, and it _hurt_ that Louis couldn’t do that anymore, couldn’t just call him up and ramble on about mundane things like he used to. It hurt that they couldn’t just be how they were before.

What hurt most, however, was that Louis somehow managed to _forget_ the love of his life.

Harry had been concerned when Louis showed up in his flat, face puffy and eyes red, and Louis wanted to, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Harry about Zayn. Couldn’t bring himself to break it off with Harry. Instead, he mumbled some excuse about his mum being sick, and Harry, kind, sweet, noble, _good_ Harry, held him in his arms, shushed him gently as Louis cried about another boy in his arms.

On the day Louis left, Harry had seen him off at the airport. Lottie had finished hugging Louis goodbye, and she stood a distance away, giving him and Harry some privacy. Harry had clutched Louis’ hands tightly, his green eyes sad, and said _couldn’t we possibly…?_ and Louis had clutched Harry’s hands right back, and shook his head.

L.A. was a different life, after all. A different universe. A different Louis.

Harry had kissed Louis for the last time—gently, carefully, sadly. It was only for a few moments, but it felt much longer. When Harry had pulled away, there was a tear in the corner of his eye, and Louis’ heart ached his chest, wanting to take away that expression on this beautiful boy’s face.

But, he knew he was doing the right thing. Louis only loved Zayn, after all.

“We’ll keep in touch,” Harry had said decisively. “We can be friends.” And Louis nodded, latched onto that sentence like a lifeline, ran it through his head a million times, and told it to himself enough times that when the wheels of the plane touched down on London soil, he could already believe that it was true.

. . .

“Say that again,” Liam says, “but slowly.”

Louis looks around the empty guest room. “Harry is gone,” he dictates, and he doesn’t know how many more times he can repeat those words.

On the phone, Liam makes a noise. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

“Like, _gone_ gone. Disappeared.” His eyes catch on where Harry’s suitcase used to stand in the corner of the room. “Left.”

“He _left_?” For someone who’d been incredibly drunk last night, Liam barely seems to be hungover. “Are you sure he didn’t just go out for lunch or something?”

Louis sits heavily on the bed, shaking his head though Liam can’t see him. He twists his hand into the sheets, tighter and tighter until he manages to pull them out from where they were tucked neatly in at the corners.

Because of course Harry made the bed before he left. Of fucking course.

“His suitcase isn’t here,” Louis says dully. “I—his suitcase isn’t here, and the room is empty and his things aren’t here and he’s made the bed all proper and he—he’s _gone_ Li, and he left and I—"

 _I sent him away_ , he wants to say, but he can’t get enough air to say it. _I’ve finally fucking sent him away._

Louis takes a deep breath, then another, his throat closing up. “Liam,” he says. Is all he can bring himself to say.

Liam must hear something in his voice, however, because he says, “I’ll be over in ten minutes,” and hangs up.

Louis tosses his phone to the side, curling up into a ball in the middle of Harry’s bed. He presses his face into the pillow, inhales the leftover traces of Harry’s scent. _He’s just gone_ , he tells himself over and over, trying to keep himself calm. _He’s not dead. There’s still a possibility he might come back_.

Of course, he only manages until Liam arrives.

“What happened?” Liam demands, standing in the doorway of Harry’s room in what is probably the rattiest pair of joggers he owns and an old, holey t-shirt. Louis takes in the sight of his best mate standing there, unkempt and possibly hungover, and the dam just.

Breaks.

“He’s not here,” Louis gasps brokenly, and then his vision is blurring with tears, streaming down his cheeks. “Liam, Harry isn’t _here_.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it out loud today, but it’s the first time it dawns on him what it actually means. Harry isn’t here, which means Harry left him; Harry took all his things with him which means Harry _isn’t coming back_. Harry hadn’t left a note, hadn’t even told Louis that he was leaving, and somehow, this makes Louis feel like his heart’s been stepped on, ripped apart at the seams.

 “Shh,” Louis hears, and then there’s a weight beside him and a hand on his back. “It’s okay.”

Louis shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, it’s _not_ ,” he says. He wishes to every fucking star in the sky, every deity in the universe, that Harry would just come back, would walk in the door with some takeaway food and a smile on his face, and everything’ll be alright. “Li, he fucking _left_ me.”

At the back of his mind, he knows that he’s being a bit too dramatic, that his reaction is a bit much for what happened. But he can’t bring himself to stop crying, can’t stop thinking about how Harry’s gone and Harry left and Harry’s _not coming back_ and Louis knows he has every right to leave, but he hadn’t told Louis and it just fucking _hurts_.

“I know, I know,” Liam replies. “Breathe, Lou.”

Louis tries, finds that he can’t get enough air. “I can’t—” he tells Liam desperately. “Liam, I can’t—”

“Calm down,” Liam tells him sternly. “You’re alright, just keep breathing.”

“It’s my fault,” Louis hiccups, ignoring Liam’s orders. His chest constricts, and it hurts so fucking much, and yet Louis thinks distantly that maybe he deserves this, for somehow managing to hurt Harry enough that he had to run away from Louis. “Everything’s my fucking fault.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It is,” Louis insists. “Li, I’m a horrible person. A really fucking horrible person.”

“You’re not, Louis.”

“I sent him away,” Louis says, ignoring Liam’s words. He wipes the tears on his cheeks; immediately, fresh ones take their place. “I’m a fucked-up person who can’t deal with my own stupid feelings and now I’ve sent one of the best things in my life away.”

Liam doesn’t say anything, and Louis thinks that maybe he’s managed to send Liam away too. He wouldn’t blame him, after all—Louis’ far too fucked up, and Liam probably got tired of picking up all the pieces Louis can’t manage to. Liam deserves a better best mate, someone mature and emotionally capable, someone who doesn’t fall apart the way Louis does.

But just as he opens his mouth to say something to that effect, a pair of arms wrap around him, squeezing him tightly. “You’re alright,” Liam whispers fiercely into Louis’ hair. “You’re alright, Lou. Whatever it is, I’m here for you, okay?”

Louis nods, turns around, and cries into the front of Liam’s holey shirt.

. . .

Later, when Louis’ calmed down enough, Liam fetches him a glass of water, sits in front of him, all downturned mouth and puppy brown eyes. He doesn’t have to say anything—Louis knows he owes him an explanation, so before he can think the better of it, he tells Liam everything.

He tells Liam how he’d actually met Harry three years ago, in a coffee shop in L.A. He tells Liam how Harry had asked him to coffee and how Louis had kissed him on their second date, and what it was like waking up next to Harry, spending almost every waking moment with him. He tells Liam about how he’d cried in Harry’s arms when Zayn called him, about how even though he knew he wasn’t ready for a relationship, he’d clung onto Harry like a selfish, greedy bastard. He tells Liam of the airport, and how they ended; tells Liam of how when he’d heard that Zayn was getting married, he’d called Harry and asked him to fly out, and Harry had agreed immediately. He tells Liam about his stupid, harebrained plan to stop Zayn’s wedding, and how he’d enlisted Harry’s help, but then Harry had somehow managed to wreck any semblance of order Louis had on his life. He tells Liam about how he’d kissed Harry last night, pressed against the wall in the dingy wall by the bathroom of the club, how Zayn had caught them, and how he’d chased after Zayn, somehow managing to lose him in the crowd. And finally, he tells Liam about waking up today, planning to ask Harry to grab breakfast, and finding all of Harry’s things gone.

When he’s finished, he hides his face into Liam’s shoulder, closes his eyes. Liam pulls him close, runs a comforting hand up and down Louis’ back, and says, “you’ve really fucked up, Tommo.”

Louis knows. “I know.” Tears well up in his eyes, and he surreptitiously wipes them away on Liam’s sleeve. “I should probably apologize to Harry.”

“You should,” Liam agrees. “But you might want to reflect a little bit, first.”

That makes Louis frown. “Reflect?” He asks, pulling away to look at Liam. “About what?”

“About Harry,” Liam says simply. “About what exactly Harry is to you.”

Although he knows Liam hadn’t meant for his words to hurt, Louis finds himself crossing his arms defensively. “He’s my friend,” he says, and even he can hear the lie in his voice. He thinks back to a crowded airport and a shitty economy class seat and Harry’s words, replaying over and over in his head. “We’re friends.”

Liam sighs. “Just friends?”

“I don’t know, what else would we be?”

Liam shrugs, doesn’t meet Louis’ eye. “You tell me,” he says. “Because the last time I saw you break down like this was when Zayn broke up with you.”

At that, Louis flinches. Despite everything, he still remembers that clear as day; remembers calling Liam, unable to speak, and Liam coming over immediately, his mouth set in a grim line. Remembers that Liam hadn’t left him alone that whole week, cooking for Louis and encouraging Louis to do the basic, simple things, _get out of bed_ , _eat_ , _shower_. When Louis had the bright—or perhaps brokenhearted—idea to buy a last-minute ticket to L.A. and visit his sister, Liam had been the first to know, and had been the one to click all the buttons Louis’ shaky fingers couldn’t.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Louis says, and the instant the words are out, he knows it isn’t true.

“I need you to really reflect hard on this, Louis,” Liam stresses.

“I am!” Louis says. “I didn’t— _don’t_ feel anything for Harry other than friendship. I love Zayn.”

Even to his own ears, the words sound empty, hollow. Like a mantra he picked up but doesn’t really believe.

Except, _no_ , he loves Zayn.

Doesn’t he?

Liam sighs. “Alright,” he says. “But if that’s the case, you’re going to have to let Harry go.”

The words hit Louis like a punch to the gut. “I have to what?”

“Let him go,” Liam repeats. “Apologize and don’t speak to him again. At least, for a few years.” There’s something sad in Liam’s brown eyes when he meets Louis’ gaze. “He’s a great guy, Louis, and I’m sure so many out there would jump at the chance to be with him. You can’t keep stringing him along like this.”

“But I’m not stringing him along,” Louis replies. “We’re, we’re friends. He _said_ that we’re friends.”

Liam worries on his bottom lip. “Tommo, it’s really obvious to anyone with eyes that the guy wants more than friendship with you.”

“That’s—that’s not true,” Louis says, although he sounds unsure. A vague, drunken memory flashes through his mind—Harry holding him up, laughing; his grip tight on Louis’ hips; his sad, almost earnest expression, eyes flickering down to the floor; three years, _three years_.

He pushes all that aside.

“I’m just telling it how I see it,” Liam says. “I just—I don’t think you can keep treating him like this.” He hesitates, the expression on his face unsure. “Three years, Louis. That’s a long time. He’s bound to get tired of chasing you forever.”

That thought makes something akin to fear clamp down on his heart. Louis opens his mouth to argue, but thinks the better of it. Instead, he buries his face into Liam’s shoulder, closes his eyes.

. . .

Niall drops by a bit later, an overnight bag in hand. He doesn’t say much, but Louis can tell he knows—Niall, contrary to popular belief, is both very perceptive and very empathetic. He and Liam don’t leave him alone for the duration of the evening, quietly watching whatever it is Louis wants to watch on Netflix, and not even complaining once.

It’s comforting, but Louis can’t help but miss a certain someone’s presence, can’t help but wish for the sound of Harry’s low chuckle right by his ear or the feeling of Harry’s long, calloused fingers in his hair.

. . .

Harry doesn’t show up to the rehearsal dinner.

Louis had known he wouldn’t, but despite everything, there’d been a small part of him that had been waiting, a small part that had been hoping Harry would burst in through the ridiculous double doors of this expensive restaurant, disheveled and windswept like something out of a ridiculous romantic comedy. He’d smile charmingly at Louis, say something like _sorry I’m late,_ and it’d be like how it was a few days ago.

Instead, the seat beside him stays resolutely empty all throughout the evening.

It’s a sad and mildly annoying, because if the rehearsal dinner were something a bit less formal, Louis could move, could switch seats with someone else, throw himself into the throng of people and ignore the emptiness beside him. But it’s a _Hadid_ affair, and like everything Gigi and her family puts together, it pulls out all the stops, complete with seating arrangements and name cards and gift bags.

So the seat beside his empty, and because of the seating arrangements, everyone and their mother _knows_.

Kendall asks him where Harry is at one point during the evening, right when she passes by his table to go to the bathroom. He tells her he doesn’t know, and wonders for a bit if he can maybe convince Kendall to sit beside him so she can get him drunk. But he eventually decides against it, because he and Kendall share absolutely nothing in common except for Harry, and he’s pretty sure Kendall has no idea what his name even is.

For some reason, Kendall doesn’t tell Gigi, and at another point of the evening, Louis ends up getting graced by the presence of the bride, all smiling and cheerful and bubbly and blonde. She asks if everything’s alright with him, asks if he needs anything else, and then finally asks him where Harry is.

“You’d think that Harry was the one originally invited to the wedding, not me,” Louis mutters to Liam and Niall, and stands from his seat and makes his way outside before they can say anything to that.

His hands are shaking as he pulls out a box of cigarettes from his pocket. It’s brand new, and it takes him a while to peel off the plastic, to crack the box open. The cigarettes stand neatly in rows, and Louis plucks one out, thinks absently about chain smoking the whole box, because everything’s a bit too much and his life is falling apart and he’s just fucking _sad_.

If Harry were here, he’d be giving Louis a disapproving look right about now.

Louis tries his best not to think about that.

The lighter flicks, once, twice, thrice before it catches, and Louis inhales the old, familiar taste of smoke. He takes two more deep breaths before he taps off the ash with a finger, waiting for the nicotine to settle into his bloodstream.

“You alright?” Someone asks, and Louis turns to find Bella fucking Hadid leaning against the wall, a cigarette in her hand and watching him.

What is his life, honestly.

“Yeah,” he says, on impulse. He thinks about the fact that he’s smoking outside one of London’s most upscale restaurants with Bella Hadid. “Maybe.” He thinks about Harry. “Not really.”

In the dim light, Louis thinks he spots her smile, just a little. She takes a puff of her own cigarette, smoke escaping from her mouth when she speaks. “Wanna talk about it?”

“With you?” Louis asks skeptically. “Really?”

“I can listen,” she replies, and she doesn’t sound insincere. She’s got a different aura compared to her sister—whereas Gigi is all bright and bubbly, Bella is a little darker, a little more tempered. A little more mysterious, which makes Louis feel that she’s a little more _real_.

Louis shakes his head. “It’s just a bit…much,” he says, taking a drag of his cigarette. He inclines his head inside, to where the rehearsal dinner is still ongoing. “Like—” he makes a vague gesture with his hands, “—everything.”

 _The rehearsal dinner,_ he thinks. _Zayn’s bachelor party_. _Zayn_. _Harry_.

“I get you,” Bella replies, seemingly taking Louis words’ to mean ‘the whole wedding’. “I mean, it’s a bit weird to me that my sister’s getting married tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Louis replies, “to Zayn.”

That brings up a strong whirlpool of feelings, one that Louis tamps down immediately. He’s not going to bare his heart out to a supermodel who probably doesn’t even know his name. He’s not drunk enough for that yet.

He shakes his head, takes another drag of his cigarette. “How’d…how’d that happen?” He wonders, mostly to himself.

“How they met, or…?”

Louis shakes his head. Literally _everyone_ knows the story of how they met. “No, like…” he trails off, thinking. “How’d they know they wanted to get married.”

It’s something that has been bothering him, these past few weeks. What was it that Zayn saw in Gigi, that he didn’t see in Louis?

Bella shrugs. “No idea.” She taps the ash off the end of hers, clearly thinking. “Really, I don’t. I don’t understand how one day they woke up and just realized they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Gi’s tried to explain it to me countless times, but,” she takes a drag of her cigarette, “I just don’t get it.”

“Love’s a bit strange, isn’t it?” Louis offers.

“Super.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes, then Bella puts out her cigarette against the wall. “They’re happy,” she tells him quietly. “This whole thing is a bit overwhelming to us, but like…” She looks up at the sky, deep in thought. “They’re sure about each other, you know? I can tell. Like, no matter how crazy everything is, they’ve got each other, and that’s all they need.” Her gaze flickers down to him. “In a sense, they’re like, each other’s comfort. Like they’re at home with each other.”

Unbidden, Louis thinks of Harry—he thinks of how he sang in the shower, loudly. Thinks of Harry in his kitchen cooking breakfast, of Harry sitting beside him on the couch, letting Louis watch whatever he wanted on Netflix. Thinks of Harry making shitty songs on the guitar, of Harry dropping by the office with food the day he worked late. Thinks of Harry’s care of him during Zayn’s bachelor party, his hand steady on Louis’ lower back for most of the evening.

Somehow, these past two weeks, Louis’ come to associate the word _home_ to Harry—the feeling, the comfort, the tranquility, the peace—and he’s not sure what to make of that revelation.

“I—” Louis starts, then shakes his head. “I still don’t understand,” he says weakly, although he thinks that maybe, he might be starting to. His cigarette burns in between his fingers; he takes one last, deep inhale before dropping it on the ground, stomping it out.

Bella laughs quietly. “I don’t think it’s for us to understand,” she says a little wisely, and then slips into the door back to the restaurant. “See you later, Louis.”

“See you,” he says quietly, and Bella shoots him one last smile, before disappearing into the restaurant.

. . .

On the day of the wedding, Louis wakes up to the smell of frying bacon.

He rolls over onto his back, takes a moment to himself. _Zayn’s getting married today_ , he thinks, and there’s a dull pang in his chest at those words. Zayn’s getting married today, and Harry’s gone, and it’s all a bit overwhelming that Louis just wants to curl up in bed and go back to sleep until this episode of his life is over.

But he can’t. Because he’s Zayn’s best man, which means he’s actually a part of the wedding party, which means he’s going to get a front row seat to watch Zayn exchange vows with Gigi.

The universe can be quite cruel, sometimes.

He gives himself five minutes to wallow, to sit with this feeling. To let it overwhelm him, to let the feeling of sadness twist in his veins, spread down his capillaries to the tips of his fingers. He’s read somewhere—he’s can’t remember where—that when sadness arrives, you should recognize it and let it in. Feel it out, bask in it, prod at its edges and sound out its extent, but do not, in any circumstances, let it stay; when the time comes, you must say your goodbyes, lead it out, and shut the door.

 _If you need to be broken_ , he thinks a little wryly, _then let yourself be broken_.

When those five minutes are up, he composes himself, gets off the bed. He can hear Liam moving around outside, probably grabbing some plates to put the bacon in. Liam has always been an early riser, getting up at some ungodly hour in order to go to the gym, and normally it would be annoying, but at the moment, Louis can’t help but feel grateful. Without him, Louis doesn’t think he’ll have the energy to fix himself breakfast.

He stumbles out of his room, ready to envelope Liam in a huge bear hug, and stops.

Because standing in the middle of his kitchen making breakfast is Harry.

He’s got his back toward Louis—he probably hadn’t heard Louis come out of the room—and he’s humming quietly under his breath as he deposits the bacon into the plate in front of him. Louis takes a moment to run his eyes over his length of his back, to stare at the way his hair curls at his nape. Takes a moment to absorb the breadth of his shoulders squeezed into a shirt a little too small for him, to memorize the way he looks at this moment, domestic and completely at home, because this may be the last time he’ll get _this_ ever again.

And when he thinks it’s been long enough, when he thinks it’s time to brave the storm, the fallout, Louis takes in a shaky breath. Exhales. Says, “you’re here,” as steadily as he can, and he knows that Harry hears him because of the way his hands falter, just a little.

In the middle of Louis’ kitchen, Harry turns around slowly. For the first time since he’d stepped foot in Louis’ flat two weeks ago, he looks uncertain, unsure.

“Of course I am,” he says. “I promised I’d be here, didn’t I?”

Then Harry smiles, wide and bright, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His eyes are a dull, ashen green, and the sight of them makes Louis’ heart hammer irregular patterns in his chest cavity. If Louis were braver, if Louis thought the same way he did two days ago, he’d probably step forward, tell a joke or two to dispel the tension, to make Harry laugh, and to make his expression melt into something more sincere, something more familiar.

But it’s been two days, and in those two days, Louis feels like his life’s been turned upside down, feels like his heart’s been turned inside out.

“But you left,” Louis says, keeping his distance.

“Yeah, I…” Harry looks away for a few moments. “I just needed time to myself. I needed to reevaluate some things.” When he turns back to Louis his expression is shy, a little ashamed. “But I’m back now, and really, there’s nothing to worry about.”

He’s lying—Louis doesn’t know how he knows it, but he just _does_ —can sense it somewhere between the tone of his voice and the set of his shoulders. He’s lying and Louis thinks he knows why, thinks it has something to do with him, and the idea that Louis had done something so horrible that Harry has to lie to his face that everything is fine between them is just.

It just fucking hurts.

But what can Louis say to that? He started this whole mess, after all. He’d been the one to bring Harry to London when Harry had been living his peaceful, Louis-free life back in L.A., he’d been the one to weave a tangled mess of his own feelings that he’d accidentally caught Harry in it too. If he were Harry, he’d want nothing to do with himself anymore.

But Harry has always been far too nice for his own good, has always been far too forgiving for his own good. Especially towards Louis; Louis doesn’t know how many times he’s probably unconsciously hurt Harry these past two weeks—probably far more times than he can even imagine—but here Harry is, standing pigeon-toed in Louis’ kitchen, with a full English spread out on Louis’ table, when he had every right in the world to leave and never come back.

He thinks about this when he helps himself to a plate of Harry’s food, thinks about this when he sits on the dining table. Thinks about this while he chews, and only snaps out of it when Harry asks him a question.

“So, judging by the suit hanging out, I’m guessing you weren’t able to stop the wedding?”

And, _shit_. In everything that’s happened these past few days—Zayn’s bachelor party, Harry leaving, the rehearsal dinner—Louis had completely forgot the initial reason why he’d asked Harry to fly out here. To help him stop Zayn from getting married.

Louis’ fork stops midway on its path to his mouth. “The wedding,” he repeats, dumbly. “I…forgot.”

It seems like a lifetime ago: Harry arriving at the airport, Louis meeting him by the arrivals hall. Harry asking about the wedding in the car—who was getting married, and why would Louis call him of all people—and Louis answering as vaguely and as best as he can.

It was so much simpler back then. At least, at the time, Louis knew what he wanted. At least, at the time, he had a clear _goal_.

Now, he’s not so sure what he wants. _Who_ he wants.

“You forgot?” Harry says skeptically. “Well, it’s not until four anyway, so you still have time.”

Louis blinks at him. “What?”

Harry huffs, a little frustrated. “You can still stop the wedding.” He says it slowly, as if talking to a little child. “As best man, you have to be at the venue for photos at what, one? You still have time.”

“But,” Louis says, a little confused. “The wedding is today.”

“And?”

“…Are you telling me to try and stop the wedding on _the day of_?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “It’s not impossible,” he says, and he sounds a bit irritable. “Lots of grooms get cold feet on the day of the wedding. And besides, that’s exactly what happened in _My Best Friend’s Wedding_.”

“Weren’t you the one who reminded me that Julia Roberts _doesn’t_ get Dermot Mulroney in the film?”

“And weren’t you the one who said, and I quote, ‘okay, _My Best Friend’s Wedding_ except I actually get the guy’?”

Louis shakes his head. “I don’t know, Harry,” he says, looking down at his plate. “I mean, it doesn’t feel right to be sabotaging his wedding right before it actually happens.”

“It’s not right to try and sabotage a wedding at all,” Harry replies, unamused. “But, you still love him, right?”

“…I guess?” Louis answers, and his heart does a weird little turn in his chest. He no longer feels the same bone-deep confidence he once did when saying those words, no longer feels like this is what he really wants. No longer knows whether or not Zayn is truly the love of his life, and it’s _terrifying_ because for the past three years, this was the certainty Louis had clung on to, the belief he’d based a lot of his actions on. His feelings for Zayn were always something he had no doubt about, and now it’s as if they’ve changed, become much more hollow than Louis thought them to be.

Harry doesn’t say anything immediately, and Louis looks up at him, takes stock of his expression. He’s smiling again, his dimples making an appearance, but this time his green eyes are _sad_ , sadder than Louis’ ever seen them to be. “Then I think you should tell him, before he makes a choice,” he says. “I think he would like to know.”

Louis’ heart aches. “I,” he tries to protest, but the expression on Harry’s face turns pleading, and the thing is, Louis isn’t in the habit of denying Harry much.

“Okay,” he says, without thinking, and he doesn’t understand why Harry’s expression cracks for a split second into something that looks a little like heartbreak, before it’s replaced by something that looks a bit like resignation.

. . .

There’s this thing Louis’ mum told him once.

It’d been back when he was still in sixth form, when his universe was much smaller, much simpler. Back when the only people he’d known where the people from his school, back when his entire world was consisted of school and home and the places in between.

He’d been crying, he remembers—Louis’ always been a bit of a crier, but even now, seven years later, he maintains it was warranted. He had spent that whole summer before school started up practicing, doing kick-ups and playing football scrimmages, hoping to make team captain. And when he’d showed up to school that year, he’d been kept on the team, but the title of captain had been given to that sod James Arthur, who couldn’t shoot a fucking penalty even if his life depended on it.

So he’d gone home after practice and cried.

His mum had climbed up the stairs after he’d missed dinner, sat on the side of his bed. He’d cried and complained, told her that Arthur was shit at football, told her that Arthur didn’t fucking deserve the title of captain, told her that _it wasn’t fair, it should’ve been me_.

She didn’t reprimand him on his language, just hummed and ran a comforting hand on his back. “Boo,” she’d said, and even now Louis can hear the gentle tone of her words in his head. “The universe is hardly ever fair. In the end, we just have to live with it.”

And really, it’s just a small, and perhaps pointless nugget of wisdom, but Louis latched onto it, refused to let it go.

 _The universe is hardly ever fair_ , he’d thought, when he’d failed an exam in uni, despite staying up all night to study for it.

 _The universe is hardly ever fair_ , he’d thought, when he’d cried in Liam’s arms, the hour after Zayn broke up with him.

 _The universe is hardly ever fair_ , he’d thought, when he was in his room in Lottie’s apartment in L.A., staring at Zayn’s beautiful, pixelated face on FaceTime.

 _The universe is hardly ever fair_ , he’d thought, when Zayn had called him up, told him that Gigi had agreed to marry him.

And now, he tells himself, _the universe is hardly ever fair_ , as he knocks on Zayn’s suite door, his hands trembling. He’s an hour early to the call time, already dressed in his three-piece suit, because Harry insisted he allot enough time for what he said was going to be a long discussion of feelings with Zayn.

Zayn opens the door, a bit surprised to see him. “You’re early,” he says, a bit surprised, but he lets him in anyway, tells him to make himself at home in the lavish suite. Zayn’s not fully dressed yet—he’s in his dress pants and a ratty t-shirt and they’re truly, properly alone for the first time since _God-knows-when_ , and _the universe is hardly ever fair_ because Louis’ been wishing for a moment alone with Zayn for so long so he can talk to Zayn about his feelings, and now that he has one, he’s not quite sure if he still wants to.

Louis clears his throat, sits primly on the couch in the living area. He checks his bowtie, making sure it’s still intact—it had been a struggle to put it on this morning, and he’d wrestled with it for about ten minutes until Harry had found him struggling and fastened it for him.

From his vantage point, he can see Zayn fiddling with his suit in the closet—running his hands over the lapels, fiddling with the bowtie loosely slung beside it. He looks to be deep in thought, but Louis knows better—despite everything that happened between them, Zayn’s still one of his best friends, and he’s learned to recognize quite a few of his ticks.

“Nervous?”

At that, Zayn seems to freeze. Louis waits quietly, because he knows Zayn, knows that sometimes, he just needs a little bit of time to formulate a response.

“A little,” Zayn says, a forced lightness to his tone. Louis watches as he abandons his suit, watches as he makes his way to where Louis is sitting. “You can’t blame me, I’m getting married today.”

“Didn’t say I was blaming you,” Louis shoots back as Zayn takes a seat beside Louis, far enough that they’re not touching. “Just, you know. It’s a big day, after all. I mean, if I were in you right now, I’d be fucking terrified.”

Zayn exhales loudly, which Louis takes for a quiet laugh. “Don’t think so,” he replies. “You’ve always been a bit better than me at these things.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just keeps silent. There’s a strange sort of anxiety building in his chest, one that keeps him ready, alert. Like he’s watching a hurricane form in front of him, growing and growing until—

 “You know,” Zayn says, “I imagined this would be us, before.”

Louis’ heart starts hammering. “What do you mean?” He asks. “Like us talking like this, or—"

“Like us getting married,” Zayn cuts him off, shooting him a look. “To each other.”

And he knew something was about to happen, had been expecting it even, but he didn’t think it would be _this_. “Oh,” he says weakly, his palms growing sweaty. “I-I see.”

“I always sort of thought it would be us in the end, you know?” Zayn says thoughtfully, seemingly oblivious to what his words are doing to Louis. “You were the first person I thought about getting married to.”

A week ago, those words would’ve overjoyed Louis. A week ago, it would’ve emboldened him, would’ve made him step forward and grab Zayn’s hand, whisper something cheesy like, _I’ve always loved you_ , or _let’s run away together_ or _it’s always going to be you and I_.

But now, all he can think about is that this shouldn’t be happening, not now, not when Zayn’s about to get married. Not when Louis’ sitting on the couch in his best man’s tux, half-thinking about someone else, someone with curly hair and green eyes and dimples.

Not when Louis isn’t in love with Zayn anymore.

The realization hits him like a lightning bolt, sends shocks and volts straight to his core. Louis loves Zayn, yes, will probably always love Zayn—but he’s not _in_ love with him anymore.

 _The universe is hardly ever fair_.

Louis takes a deep breath. Holds the air in his lungs for a few seconds, then lets it out in one big _whoosh_. “You broke up with me,” he says carefully. He musters up all his confidence, meets Zayn’s eye. “Why’d you do that then, if you thought about marrying me?”

Zayn’s eyes are a little bit sad. “Because that was the problem right there,” he replies. The corners of his lips quirk up in a sort-of smile. “I wanted to marry you, but in my head, that sort of became the ending. Like a happy ever after in a Disney film.” He takes a deep breath. “I couldn’t see myself having a future with you past that.”

Zayn’s words sting, just a little. “I see,” Louis says, for a lack of anything better to say.

“It really messed with my brain,” Zayn continues. “Because God, Louis, you were _perfect_. I loved you so fucking much, and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t see us doing any of the domestic things. I couldn’t even see us living together.”

“We already lived together in uni,” Louis points out unnecessarily. He can feel his throat closing, tears welling up. “We were roommates.”

Zayn laughs, a quiet, sad sound. “Yes, we were,” he says, his voice gentle.

Louis sniffs, looking down at his lap. He’d thought he was already done crying over Zayn, but apparently his body has other plans. “So, you broke up with me because of that?”

“Yes and no,” Zayn answers. “I broke up with you because I wanted to recalibrate my life. I wanted to give myself a bit of time to mature. I’d thought that maybe, once I’d grown enough, I’d finally be able to see something with you past the ceremony.”

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his, and Louis looks up, finds Zayn a little closer. There are tears in his eyes too, and Louis breaks, feels one tear, then another, rolling down his cheek.

“I’d always intended to go back to you,” Zayn continues. “At the time there was never any doubt in my mind that you were who I’d end up with. But then I met Gigi.”

He doesn’t have to say anything for Louis to understand. _Gigi, who understands him in a way nobody else can. Gigi, who he thinks might be his soulmate. Gigi, who he wants everything with._

“I love you, Zayn,” Louis blurts without thinking, his voice cracking. He does his best to smile brightly at Zayn despite his tears. “I’ll always love you, you know that?”

Zayn smiles, a tear rolling down his cheek. “I’ll always love you too, Lou,” he replies easily, gently. “But maybe that’s it for us.”

Louis nods, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Zayn wraps him in a hug, and he buries his face into Zayn’s shoulder, cries with all he has. Cries for this boy—this stupid, beautiful boy that Louis will maybe always love; cries for their stupid, wonderful relationship. Cries because Zayn’s getting married to Gigi Hadid, and although Louis knows Zayn will always be his best mate, he also knows that this is the end for them. He cries and he cries and he cries and when he’s done he feels free, feels like he’s finally closing a door in his life that’d been left open for far too long.

Louis composes himself, pulls away from Zayn. Wipes his nose with the back of his hand, checks the time on his phone. Tells Zayn, “now, let’s get you married,” and watches as Zayn lights up at his words, grinning despite the tear tracks on his cheeks.

Louis can’t help himself; he smiles back at Zayn, and there’s one last, lingering moment between them, before Zayn gets up and goes to get ready.

. . .

Everything is a blur after that.

The other groomsmen arrive one by one, and not long after them, the photographer. They’re all quickly herded out of the room for the photos, and Louis’ vision momentarily blinds because of all the camera flashes and when he blinks, it’s already fifteen minutes to four and they’re gathering at the venue, getting a last-minute briefing from the wedding organizer. Then suddenly Louis is standing beside Zayn by the altar, and Gigi is walking down the aisle looking blonde and radiant, every bit the beautiful bride, and then vows are exchanged and rings are swapped and Zayn is.

Zayn is really, truly, properly _married_.

And Louis’ heart breaks a little, but there’s also an overwhelming feeling of lightness, of _joy_ flooding through his veins. Zayn looks happier than he’s ever seen him, his eyes perpetually squinted in the way they get when he’s smiling too wide, and Louis can’t help but tear up as he watches Zayn and Gigi share their first kiss as a married couple.

It’s easy to spot Harry after the ceremony—he’s not wearing a purple suit, like he joked he would, but he stands out, looking gorgeous in a simple black and white tux. Louis finds him speaking with one of the other wedding guests, and is about to leave him alone when Harry looks up and spots him.

His eyes never leave Louis’ as he makes his excuses, and Louis’ breath hitches, his heart somersaults as Harry makes his way over. He doesn’t know how he’d managed to overlook these visceral reactions he has every time Harry’s in the vicinity, doesn’t know how he’d always thought that what he felt was just friendship when clearly it was something more. _So_ much more.

He looks away, tries to compose himself. Doesn’t turn back to look until Harry bumps their shoulders together gently.

“So,” he begins. “I’m thinking the plan didn’t work.”

Louis does his best to suppress a snort. “It was a shit plan, anyway.” He takes in Harry’s artfully-styled curls, the crisp, clean lines of his suit, and his heart thumps painfully in his chest, unable _not_ to react when Harry looks like this, all dressed up and gorgeous. “You look really nice.”

The apples of Harry’s cheeks pink a little. “Um, thanks,” he says, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

Louis makes a big show of checking himself over, frowning. “Really? You don’t think the bowtie looks horrible?”

That makes Harry laugh, a clear, crisp sound that Louis wants to bottle up and keep forever. “You’re an unappreciative twat,” he says fondly, and it’s so easy for them to fall back to how they were, so easy for Louis to make Harry laugh. If he could, he would spend the rest of his life making Harry laugh, would spend years memorizing the curve of his lip, the depth of his dimples. “I think it’s the best part of your outfit.”

“Really? I think the person who tied it had no idea what he was doing.”

“If you keep this up, I’ll unfasten it right now and leave you to struggle,” Harry replies easily. “You don’t want to look horribly unkempt at a celebrity wedding this early in the evening.”

Louis realizes, belatedly, that he and Harry are still touching—neither of them have moved away from each other, so now they’re standing shoulder to shoulder, the back of their palms brushing together lightly.

Louis stops himself from reaching for Harry’s hand, from twining their fingers together. “It was a beautiful wedding,” he says instead.

“It was,” Harry agrees. He falls quiet, seemingly considering what to say next. “But what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you going to do now?” Harry sounds genuinely curious. “Are you already coming up with a plan to divorce the lovely couple? I have to warn you though, I refuse to fly to London for that.”

Louis shakes his head, feeling the beginnings of a smile on his face. “No divorce plan,” he says. He pulls away, turns to face Harry. “No more hare-brained schemes.” He thinks for a moment. “The plan now is for you to get me drunk at the reception—”

“Done,” Harry interrupts, his mouth curling up at the edges.

“And then tomorrow,” Louis continues, his heart suddenly kicking into overdrive. He bites his lip, and before he can think too hard about it, reaches out and takes Harry’s hand. Harry stills suddenly, his eyes tracking the movement. “Tomorrow, maybe we can go on a date.”

There’s a pause. “A date?” Harry echoes, a little faintly. “Like as friends?”

Louis shrugs nonchalantly, even though he’s freaking out internally. Harry’s looking at him, all skeptical and confused and a little hurt, and Louis just wants to make him smile again.

“If you like,” Louis says. “But I was kind of hoping for it to be a romantic sort of date.”

And Harry’s eyes flash, and then he’s pulling his hand away from Louis’ roughly.

It’s not the reaction Louis was expecting, but he knows he deserves it—after all, he hasn’t exactly been the most straightforward person these past few weeks. He’d been confusing and misleading and an arsehole while dealing with his fucked-up feelings, and Harry had been the one most affected by it.

But for the first time in weeks, Louis can see clearly; for the first time in weeks, he’s gotten ahold of his feelings. He’s finally caught up to the program, finally knows just what, exactly, he wants.

 _Who_ he wants.

Now, it’s just a matter of doing everything properly.

It’s for this reason that he stands his ground and meets Harry’s eye, for this reason why he lets Harry know he’s serious. Harry looks to be at a loss, his eyes darting around Louis’ face, looking for something. When he doesn’t find it, he sighs, runs a hand through his curls, and just as he’s about to say something, Liam’s booming voice echoes through the venue, telling everyone to go to the reception.

Harry shuts his mouth, gives Louis an unreadable look. “We have a lot to talk about,” he says, but he doesn’t sound too angry. “Right now, let’s just go to the reception. Pretty sure we can’t just skip it, you’ve got a best man’s speech to deliver after all.”

A best man’s speech. _Oh, shit_. “Oh, shit,” Louis says.

Harry rolls his eyes. “A best man’s speech to write _and_ deliver then."

. . .

If Louis thought the rehearsal dinner was grand, then the reception is _awe-inspiring_.

Louis isn’t, by any means poor—he’d grown up relatively comfortable, his mum able to support him and his siblings on her salary. He makes good money at the paper, enough to pay the rent for his flat and the insurance on his car. Once in a while he goes out to splurge, spending way too much on sneakers, or a new phone, or on presents for his siblings. He’s not a stranger to money.

But this is the first time he’s ever seen money to this _extent_.

Everything is so _lavish_ —the lanterns strung up over the venue, the big oak trees dripping with fairy lights, the three feet tall wedding cake, the impeccable table setting. Even Harry, who (for some reason) runs in the same circles as the Kardashian-Jenners, looks blown away, his face slack as he takes in the flawless décor.

They really went all out for the reception. Louis’ half-thinking of stealing a set of the cutlery; he’s pretty sure that it costs more than what he makes in a year, he never knows when he’ll need that kind of financial stability.

He says as much to Harry, who snorts and digs his elbow into his side. “At least wait until everyone’s drunk before you start concocting grand larceny schemes,” he says.

The meal is scrumptious, and there’s no shortage of alcohol, the waiters coming over periodically to top their wine glasses. Louis spends most of the meal observing Harry, who spends more time talking than he does eating; he and Niall seem to get along like a house on fire, laughing over everything. At one point, they even exchange Instagram accounts, the sight of which makes Louis’ chest feel warm.

His best man’s speech, for something hastily put together ten minutes before the reception, is well-received—he thinks he even spots a few guests with tears in their eyes. Zayn, on the other hand, is openly crying, and he gets up to give Louis a hug the instant he finishes, almost vaulting over the table in his haste to do so.

“Thank you,” he whispers fiercely, into Louis’ ear. Louis holds him tighter, squeezes his eyes shut. “Thank you, Lou.”

“Goodbye, Z,” he replies, and it’s a finality.

There’s a few more speeches and a few games before the Gigi and Zayn are being called to the dancefloor for their first dance. Louis presses his shoulder to Harry, watches Zayn twirl Gigi around the dance floor, and feels nothing but contentment.

The first dance segues into the opening of the dance floor, which means that the reception is now over and they can finally get up from their assigned seats and go dance. Louis looks over at Harry, at the slope of his nose and the furrow of his brow, and makes an impulsive decision.

“Dance with me,” he says, and holds out a hand.

He watches Harry’s expression, watches as his eyes flicker down to Louis’ hand, then up to his face. “Um,” he says, “that didn’t go so well, last time.”

Louis feels the corner of his lips turn up, ever so slightly. “Dance with me,” he repeats.

“We still need to talk,” Harry protests, but he’s taking Louis’ hand anyway.

Louis leads him to a relatively unpopulated section of the dance floor, far away from the other dancing guests so that they’re not overheard. Harry’s gentle in his movements—he always is, when it comes to Louis—and his touch is feather-light when he fits his hand into the dip of Louis’ waist.

Louis hums, resting his hands on the back of Harry’s neck. “We can talk while dancing,” he says, and cocks his head towards Harry, gesturing for him to start.

It takes Harry a few false starts. “What happened with the plan?”

Underneath the lanterns, Harry’s eyes are a kaleidoscope of colours, like something straight out of a fairy-tale. “Like I said, it was a shit plan,” Louis replies. “It didn’t work.”

“It didn’t work,” Harry repeats. “So what, you told him you were still in love with him and he didn’t care?”

“Not really,” Louis says. “I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me too.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Louis says carefully, “I let him go.”

It’s quiet for a few moments. “Why?” Harry asks, his voice a little cautious.

“I—” Louis stops, takes in the vulnerable expression on Harry’s face. Hopes, with everything in him, that he’ll still have this, that he’ll still have _Harry_ after what he’s about to say.

Harry’s given him so many chances, and Louis’ fucked them all up incredibly. If Harry decides to give him another one, Louis swears he’s going to do his best to do everything _right_.

“I realized, these past two weeks,” Louis begins slowly, “that I love Zayn, but I’m not in love with him anymore.”

Harry looks dumbstruck. “What?” He says. “But how?”

“I’m not sure,” Louis replies. He thinks of Harry singing in the shower, thinks of the feeling of Harry’s body pressed against him, thinks of him playing the guitar, drunk and happy. Thinks of their drunken kiss, rough and gentle, paradoxical and overwhelming. “But I think it’s because—and I know this sounds kind of strange—I found someone else.”

This close, Louis can hear Harry’s sudden, shocked intake of breath. “Oh?” He asks, and there’s a quiver in his voice, kind of like he’s afraid. “Who?”

Louis takes a moment to memorize the way Harry looks right now, underneath the golden lights. And then he leans onto his tiptoes, presses his lips to Harry’s.

It doesn’t last long; Harry softens against him for a moment before he’s pulling away, his eyes wild. He takes a step back, his grip falling from Louis’ waist. “I don’t understand,” he says, a hand coming up to card through his hair.

He doesn’t give Louis a chance to clarify though, because suddenly he’s spinning on his heel, walking abruptly off the dance floor. Louis doesn’t hesitate, charges after him, manages to snag the edge of his suit jacket right before he leaves the reception area. “Harry—”

“I can’t, Lou,” Harry says, and before he’s turning around, his eyes wild. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Harry, I’m sorry, I thought—”

And Harry laughs, an ugly, painful sound. “You don’t,” is what he says, and he sounds hurt, almost angry. “You never fucking _think_. You can’t keep doing this to me, Louis. You can’t keep stringing me along like this.”

He cuts himself off, takes a deep breath. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, measured. “I thought that I could handle it, just being your friend. I thought that knowing you were in love with someone else would make it easier. But you’re so fucking _confusing_. One minute you’re telling me to fly to London to help you win over a guy who’s getting married and the next you’re fucking _kissing_ me, and I just—I don’t understand, and it’s not _fair_.” He shakes his head. “It’s not fair because you have to know I’m fucking _gone_ for you, Louis, that it’s really starting to hurt just looking at you, and you can’t keep taking advantage of that, and—"

“Harry,” Louis says. “Stop.”

Abruptly, Harry’s mouth shuts, and he gives Louis a skeptical look. “Why are you smiling?”

Louis hadn’t realized that he was, but for some reason, he can’t seem to stop. His heart thumps loudly in his chest, and it’s a little exhilarating, because maybe, just maybe, he’s got a shot at this after all.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, still smiling, “that I hurt you. I was an idiot to not see you, when you were right in front of me, and an even bigger idiot to not realize what I felt for you.”

Harry’s eyes narrow. “What? What does that mean?”

Louis takes a step forward, close enough that he could reach out and touch Harry, if he wanted to. “I was an idiot,” he repeats, “to keep chasing after Zayn, when I could have had you.”

“You know, you’re really not making any sense,” Harry replies, but he hasn’t left yet, which Louis takes to be a good sign.

“I was confused,” Louis says, as honestly as he can. “These past three years, I’d thought that Zayn was it for me, that I’d never find someone else. But then you showed up and it was just—” he waves a hand, trying to find the words. “You made me feel things. Things I thought I’d never feel with anyone except Zayn. You showed up and I was so taken with you, which didn’t make sense because I was in love with Zayn and—”

He breaks off, shakes his head. “I was horrible, these past two weeks. To you, especially. And I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but I was confused and lost because I was so _sure_ that I loved Zayn, but there you were, making me reevaluate everything. And I resisted, _God_ , I resisted, I clung on to what I knew, and it took me a while to get to his point, but,” he takes a deep breath, “now I have, Harry.”

“You have,” Harry repeats, and he looks a bit shell-shocked.

Louis nods. “I’m not in love with Zayn anymore,” he says. “I was, back when we met in L.A., but I’m not now. Probably haven’t been for a while. I just refused to let go of the idea.” He takes a deep breath. “And I know we didn’t exactly start out the best way, and I’ve probably fucked everything up, but if you give me another chance, Harry Styles—” He reaches, out, brushes his hand against Harry’s, “I’d really like to start over. And this time, do everything properly with you.”

Harry inhales shakily. “Are you mocking me?”

“I wouldn’t,” Louis says, as earnestly as possible. “I would never.”

Harry’s eyes flit all over Louis’ face, and Louis doesn’t know what he’s searching for, but he thinks that maybe Harry finds it, judging by the way his shoulders relax a little, the way he nods ever so slightly.

“God,” he says, and his voice still sounds a bit shaky. He scrubs a hand down his face. “I need a drink.”

“Oh,” Louis says, trying not to sound too disappointed. He hadn’t been expecting an answer immediately, of course—Harry has the right to take as much time as he needs—but if he’s being honest, he’d been expecting a response better than _I want to get wasted_. He hadn’t thought his confession was _that_ horrible. “Okay.”

 Harry looks at him for a few moments, then rolls his eyes ever so slightly. “Come with me?” He asks, and there’s a hint of shyness in his voice, like he’s still not sure where he stands with Louis.

Louis swallows, tries to tamp down the feeling of warmth growing under his breastbone. “Of course, Haz,” he says, and lets Harry lead him to the open bar.

. . .

They spend some time by the bar—Harry’s quite adamant about taking a few shots, and convincing the bartender to serve him shots at this time of the night takes longer than Louis thought it would. Once he and Harry have got quite a bit of tequila in them and they’ve each got a drink in one hand, Louis suggests going back to their table so they can talk a bit more in relative privacy.

When they get back to their table, however, they find that they’re not alone; Liam and Niall are sat on the table, whispering furiously to each other and looking at something on Niall’s phone.

“Um,” Louis says to Harry, “maybe we should go sit at another table.”

His words, however, seem to catch Liam and Niall’s attention, and Louis watches as the two of them look up, watches as a strange smile spreads across their face. “Louis, Harry,” Niall greets. “Just the people we wanted to see. Please, take a seat.”

Louis exchanges a look with Harry. “Uh, sure,” he says, and he plops down on the nearest chair, setting his drink down on the table. Harry, after a split second, follows. “What’s up?

Niall opens his mouth to speak, but Liam cuts him off. “Tommo,” he starts. “Do you know what Harry does for a living?”

Louis blinks. He’s not quite sure where this question is coming from. “Yeah?” He hedges. “He’s a manager at a weird coffee shop in L.A.”

“Are you sure?” Liam stresses, and there’s a weird sense of urgency in his voice.

“Well, that’s what he told me,” Louis replies, now feeling a bit uncertain. “Why?”

Beside him, Harry suddenly seems to realize something, and he’s straightening up abruptly. “No,” he says to Liam and Niall, and Louis turns to look at him, finds him wide-eyed. “You didn’t.”

“We did,” Niall replies grimly. “Sorry, Haz.”

“God, I’m not drunk enough for this,” Harry mutters. He downs about half his drink all at once, and Louis tries not to get distracted by the line of his throat, and the bob of his Adam’s Apple.

“What’s going on?” Louis directs the question to Liam and Niall. “What happened?”

“Harry,” Niall begins, a little too dramatically, “has been lying to you.”

Louis blinks. “What?”

“It’s not as bad as he’s making it sound,” Harry mutters to him. “I swear, it really isn’t.”

Niall ignores him. “So earlier in the evening, I asked, and Harry told me that I could add him on Facebook,” he begins.

“Facebook?” Louis interjects. “Who the fuck still uses Facebook nowadays?”

Niall gives him a dour look. “I do, and that’s not the point.”

“Anyway,” Liam cuts in, starting to get a weird, excited look in his eye. “Niall, for some reason, confused the Facebook search bar with _Google_ —”

“Hey! It’s an easy mistake!”

“—and ended up googling Harry Styles, and.” Liam grabs Niall’s phone, pushes it towards Louis. “Look what we found.”

 _Harry Styles_ , the headline on the phone reads. _The New Voice_ _Behind Good Pop Music_.

“What,” Louis says. “Is that.”

He grabs the phone from Liam, scrolls down to the article. From what he can tell, the article is an interview with Harry Styles— _his_ Harry, the one who’s sitting right next to him, trying to get drunk off the fruity cocktail in his hand.

What the fuck.

“There’s about a hundred of those,” Niall chimes. “Harry, apparently, has been responsible for writing some of the biggest pop music hits the past three years.” He raises an eyebrow. “Everyone’s apparently dying to work with him.”

“Okay, that’s blatantly untrue,” Harry finally speaks up. “The article you read is highly exaggerated. Not _everyone_ wants to work with me.”

Louis turns to look at him. “You…write songs?” He manages to get out, feeling a bit incredulous. “Like, actual real songs that get played on the radio?”

Harry, actually, looks a bit uncomfortable by Louis’ question. “Well, maybe a few of them get played on the radio,” he answers. “Like, one or two. Or ten.”

“Ten?” Louis looks at him, eyes wide.

“Well, a bit more than that,” Harry amends. “But ten is the number of songs I have that made it to number one on the Billboard charts.”

Louis is about to have an aneurysm. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Wait, you don’t even work at a coffee shop, do you?”

“I do!” Harry sounds affronted by the accusation. “I’m actually the manager there.” He pauses. “And, uh, the owner.”

“The _owner_?” Louis’ eyes are going to bulge out of his head.

Harry shrugs. “They were going out of business,” he replies. “And I had more than enough money than I knew what to do with. So I just bought it.”

“You just _bought_ —"

“That’s not all, though!” Liam interrupts, and, God, there’s _more_? Louis doesn’t know how much more he can take—his head is still spinning from the fact that he’s apparently invited an extremely famous, extremely talented, and extremely rich songwriter to London to be his date for Zayn’s dumb wedding. Suddenly, the Saint Laurent clothes make sense.

“Read the article on the phone.” Liam nudges the phone towards Louis. “Specifically, the part towards the end.”

“What is it?” Harry cranes his neck to peek. His eyes widen, apparently, when he realizes just what article it is. “Oh God, Lou. Please don’t.”

“Shh,” Louis says, then proceeds to scroll down.

 _Before we go our separate ways,_ _I ask Styles about his sudden, meteoric rise in the music industry. I tell him that this kind of trajectory is practically unheard of, and he seems to be aware of that, judging by the sudden, sheepish expression that takes over his face. What, then, would he say contributed to his overnight success?_

 _“First of all, it’s not me,” he insists, running a hand through his hair uncomfortably. “It really isn’t_. _It’s the collaborative effort of the people around me, and the artists who like my songs enough to sing it.” His modesty is earnest, and his sincerity is almost child-like. “For example, if Ariana Grande—”_

“You wrote a song for _Ariana Grande_?” Louis blurts out, lifting his head to look at Harry.

“Sort of…?” Harry answers, the exact same time Niall says, “keep reading.”

_“—if Ariana Grande didn’t like ‘Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart’ so much, I don’t think I would be as…as known as I am today.”_

_His avoidance of the word ‘famous’ to describe himself says quite a lot about his ego. “I don’t like the word famous,” he shares to me. “I’m just a boy from Holmes Chapel, writing songs about my experiences, about love, about heartbreak.” A small, sardonic smirk spreads on his face. “About him.”_

_Him? Styles pauses, wondering if he’s shared too much. He looks at my digital recorder like a barely invited guest. “I think, without him, I wouldn’t have made it to where I am today.” He doesn’t specify to me who him is. “I mean, in the end, all I am is a boy who loved another boy too much, and wrote a bunch of songs about him in the hopes that someday he’d listen.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I don’t know if he has, actually.”_

_Are he and this unnamed boy still in contact? “Yes,” he announces, laughing a little bit. “He’s doing well, from what I hear. I text him almost every day. He’s in London.”_

Louis stops reading, his head spinning. There’s something there—like Louis’ got all the pieces of the puzzle in his hands, and now just has to make them fit. He thinks of Harry drunk and playing the guitar on Louis’ living room floor, remembers Harry’s hands on the guitar, flitting through the chords easily, remembers Harry’s horrible, drunken song about Louis.

Remembers, suddenly, a comment Harry had made and when Louis had jokingly asked him about the other songs he’d written about him: _I sold them and made a lot of money_.

The puzzle pieces click into place.

“You wrote songs about me?”

Louis is reeling, because _holy fuck_. Harry wrote songs about _him_. There are actual, real songs on the radio, sung by famous people, that are about Louis. His mum and his sisters and a huge chunk of strangers have heard songs that contained _him_ , in the lyrics. He’s actually been immortalized in song.

He wonders if this is what Taylor Swift’s exes feel like.

From his peripheral vision, he sees Liam reach out to take the phone back, before he and Niall are standing up from the table and leaving.

Harry winces. “I’m sorry?” He says. “I didn’t really intend to, but after you left L.A., they just…poured out? And then I met Kendall, who introduced me to some executives, and then suddenly my songs were getting picked up and then these big-name artists were recording them and by the time they came out on the radio it’d been months since you left and I didn’t know how to bring the subject up.”

“You still could’ve,” Louis says, his head still spinning. “Maybe a text like, _head’s up, there’s going to be a song about you on the radio_.”

“I didn’t want to seem pathetic,” Harry says, crossing his arms. “I mean we had, what, two months together? Barely even a relationship, but there I was, writing song after song about you and like some idiot who got attached to quickly and,” he sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Three years, Louis. I’ve been fucking gone for you for three years. I tried to get over you, but I just—I just _couldn’t_.”

 _Three years_. Hearing it said out loud makes Louis’ heart flutter happily in his chest, and he’s pretty sure he starts smiling again.

Harry, however, doesn’t seem to notice. Or care. “That’s why I need to know that you’re serious,” he says, his expression painfully pleading, his voice awfully close to begging. “I need to know if you really mean it, if this is _real_ , because, I don’t think I could take it otherwise.”

He sounds so dejected, so worried, and so _hurt_ that Louis’ heart just melts. Three years—Louis can’t believe he’d been oblivious for three years, that he’d hurt this wonderful, beautiful boy for three years. He doesn’t think he’ll ever apologize enough.

But he swears, he’s going to spend a lifetime trying.

“I mean it,” Louis tells him. “Today, and tomorrow, and the days after that. I want you, Harry Styles, I really do. I want to _try_ , with you.”

Harry still looks a bit disbelieving, so Louis keeps talking. “I want to make this work,” he continues. He watches the way Harry’s eyes grow less and less guarded. “I genuinely, really, truly want to be with you, Harry. For as long as you’ll have me. Maybe even for forever.”

He watches as Harry exhales a bit shakily. “Forever’s quite a long time,” he says lightly, and that’s not necessarily a _no_.

“I’m willing to try,” Louis insists. “I really am.”

“Maybe we can build up to that later,” Harry says, and he’s not smiling, not really, but there’s a twinkle in his eye. “For now though, let’s just start with that date tomorrow.”

And under the golden lantern lights, in the middle of this gorgeous, outdoor reception, Harry takes a deep breath, reaches out and holds Louis’ hand. Louis twines their fingers together, shoots Harry a small smile, and he just knows, by the way Harry smiles back, that they’ll be alright.

. . .

(Their date goes exceedingly well. Louis treats Harry to a little Italian place, plays footsies with him under the table. They get wine drunk and Louis spends the evening laughing and watching Harry, the way his eyes reflect the dim candlelight of the restaurant, the way his face lights up as he laughs. The way he moves when he’s telling a story—like the cadence of poetry, the rhythm of song. Louis can’t get enough.

They stay at the restaurant until closing time, and when they leave, Louis reaches over and takes Harry’s hand. Harry lets him, and they spend an hour walking around London, stopping for dessert and enjoying the evening lights.

When they get back to Louis’ flat, Louis sits him down on the floor of the living area, hands him the guitar. “I want to hear what you wanted to tell me,” he says, and Harry doesn’t protest, just takes the guitar from him and strums it a little before beginning.

Harry sings quietly, his voice rough but filled with emotion. Louis listens intently, tries his best to capture the meaning of the songs, the emotion behind them. Tries his best to hear what Harry’s been trying to tell him, these past three years.

He tears up on the third song, when Harry shoots him a small smile and sings _I fell in love with a beautiful boy, and he still takes my breath away_. Because, apparently, as he finds out later, Harry actually _had_ written that song for him.

Louis kisses him after, sat on the floor of his flat, the guitar still in between them. It’s the first time Louis’ truly, properly kissed him—no thoughts of ex-boyfriends, no other motives except _I just want to kiss you_. He kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, and Harry kisses him back, rough and gentle and overwhelming, his touch light on Louis’ lower back, and it’s.

It’s perfect.)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from 'I love you' by Alex & Sierra, a song that Harry actually wrote on.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://missandrogyny.tumblr.com)!


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